Book review: Adnan Hossain. 2021. Beyond Emasculation: Pleasure and Power in the Making of Hijra in Bangladesh

This book is based on extensive ethnographic research among hijras, the representative figure of sexual and gender diversity in South Asia. The author focuses on cultural paradoxes and contradictions in the formation of hijra subject positions and presents the secret world of Hridoypur as an alternate space of shared desire. The complex, interesting, well- written narrative deepens our comprehension of the world of Bangladesh’s hijras. The recognition of hijras’ eroticism, which is at the core of their lived lives and cosmologies, is portrayed systematically as a contradiction to the public representation of them as asexual and above desire. Hijra, according to the author, is an alternative realm that one enters in order to explore and experience a variety of erotic gender and sexual possibilities otherwise unavailable to people who identify as traditionally masculine in Bangladesh and elsewhere. In the hijra’s invention and employment of a clandestine language—Ulti, the coded manner of signalling communitarian affiliation and a yearning for heteronormative men—this dilemma and ambivalence between internal knowledge and external projection is foregrounded.

The author argues that ‘masculinities are central to the marginalization of hijras in contemporary Bangladesh’ (p. 8). A diversity of types of masculinity are enacted in a complex interplay with various aspects—including class, ethnicity, gender, power, desire, religion, kinship and transnationalism—and these types of masculinity are dynamic. Hijra space serves as an alternative location for actualising and engaging in various sorts of erotic and physical fulfilment. In contrast to the prevalent depiction of hijras as fixed in an intermediate, third‑sex category, a ‘male femininity approach’ (p. 13) emphasises the dynamic and fluid practices and processes of movements and shifts across and between many positions through which the hijra subject is produced. The popular perception of hijras—as having some sort of biological defect or being castrated or handicapped—is questioned and contested by the author. The author also questions the centrality of emasculation in the creation of hijras. Becoming hijra is a complex process which the author argues is ‘an achieved status and not an ascribed one’ (p. 13). The intricate account illustrates how hijras can be both hyper‑masculine and hyper‑feminine at the same time. There are hijras who have penises and others who do not, some of whom switch between hijra and normative masculinity, and still others live as hijra on a more consistent basis. Despite their differences, male-born, female‑ identifying people are united by a desire for normatively masculine men. The book elaborates on the numerous, occasionally contentious hijra subject manifestations and practices that exist in South Asia.

In the first chapter, ‘Kinship Community and Hijragiri’, the hijra category is positioned within the broader framework of culturally recognised ‘male femininities’ (p. 15). It focuses on the various groups of male‑born, feminine‑identified people and highlights the similarities and differences among them. The author delves into the intricate networks, laws and customs that govern the dhurrani, gamchali, bagicha and sadrali kinship networks of hijras (p. 22). The fundamental role of social class in the social production and construction of hijras as a category of abjection is brought to light in the second chapter, ‘Class-Cultural Politics and the Making of Hijras’. Chapter 3, ‘Hijra Erotic Subjectivities: Pleasure, Practice, and Power’, explores erotic desire in the conception of hijras and reveals the secret universe that accepts both conventions of heterosexual desire and the parallel possibilities of erotic entanglements. Chapter 4, ‘The Paradox of Emasculation’, emphasises myths, rituals, bodily transformations and functional aspects that are relevant to emasculation. It also details the notions and practices of emasculation as expressed in the contexts of hijras’ lives. The practices and processes of gendering that hijras in Dhaka employ are revealed in Chapter 5, ‘Practices and Processes of Gendering’. In order to show how hijras negotiate not only masculinity and femininity but also hijra-ness, the author highlights through their actual lived practices the various ways in which gender is produced, reproduced, and modified by them. Chapter 6, ‘Love and Emotional Intimacy: Hijra Entanglement with Normative Bangla Men’, takes a substantial departure from earlier ethnographic studies by examining the role lovers play in hijras’ lives. The normatively inclined masculine male companions, often known as parik, play a significant role in the hijras’ daily lives. The complicated process of the formation of masculinities, in which both hijras and their partners co-constitute each other’s gender, is highlighted by the ethnographic elaboration of hijra affective attachment and entanglement with partners. The focus shifts to how nongovernmental organisations (NGO) and diverse transnational movements are influencing the hijra subculture in Chapter 7, ‘Contemporary Transformation of Hijra Subjectivities’. In the conclusion, titled ‘Shifting Meanings and the Future of Hijras’, the discussion shifts to the possibility that the hijra subculture will evolve in response to numerous processes and changes currently taking place.

The alternative semiotic and symbolic domain of desire that is neither easily accessible nor understandable to the larger society is well-described by the author. Through rigorous research, an original theoretical framework and gripping descriptions, the author challenges India-centric interpretations of hijras. A beautifully written analysis of the hijra world helps dispel the stereotype of being above and beyond desire and expands our understanding. The focus on the hijras of Bangladesh and the analysis that highlights how hijras are best understood as a disruption of masculinities rather than as a third gender make this study unique. A remarkable finding of lives and voices that have not been sufficiently documented and heard is made possible by the author’s ethnographic insights from fieldwork, which also add value to the work, capture the nuances and contradictions and make it engaging.