“I Am Not a Hijra”: Class,Respectability,and the Emergence of the “New” Transgender Woman in India

Abstract

This article examines the mutual imbrication of gender and class that shapes how some transgender women seek incorporation into social hierarchies in postcolonial India. Existing literature demonstrates an association between transgender and middle-class-status in the global South. Through an 18-month ethnographic study in Bangalore from 2009 through 2016 with transgender women, NGO (nongovernmental organization) workers and activists, as well as textual analyses of media representations, I draw on “new woman” archetypes to argue that the discourses of empowerment and respectability that impacted middle-class cisgender women in late colonial, postcolonial and liberalized India also impact how trans women narrate their struggles and newfound opportunities. Trans woman identities are often juxtaposed to the identities of hijras, a recognized (yet socially marginal) group of working-class male-assigned gender-nonconforming people. Instead of challenging stereotypes of gender nonconformity most evident in the marginalization of hijras, some transgender women are at pains to highlight their difference from hijras. These trans women are from working-class backgrounds. It is partly their similarities in class location that propel trans women’s efforts to distinguish themselves from hijras. They employ the figure of the disreputable hijra to contain negative stereotypes associated with gender nonconformity, thus positioning their identities in proximity with middle-class respectable womanhood.

Keywords

transgender gender culture transnational post-colonial development

In August 2016, the Facebook group Transgender India, which had more than 16,000 followers, published a photo series entitled “I am Not a Hijra.” The photos picture primarily feminine-presenting gender-nonconforming¹ (hereafter, GNC) people assigned gender male at birth holding signs that claim trans² identities and emphasize their distinctness from stereotypes associated with hijras (historically recognized, yet socially marginalized GNC people). Although transgender is a newer category in India, it is often framed in opposition to the longstanding, yet stigmatized, category of hijra. The desire and ability for a group of mostly feminine-presenting GNC people to claim identities separate from hijras raises a set of questions, such as:

In what social context are trans women’s identity claims made? What kinds of subjects do they define themselves in relation to and against? To what extent do historical constructions of womanhood in postcolonial India shape their claims? More specifically: To what extent are transgender women’s identity claims predicated on the continuing stigmatization of hijras? What kinds of social benefits might transgender women gain by drawing clear boundaries between themselves and hijras? To what extent is the discursive figure of the hijra employed to support claims that trans women closely approximate ideals of (middle-class) womanhood?

This analysis focuses on the mutual imbrication of gender and class that shapes how the transgender category is incorporated into social hierarchies in India. The majority of my participants hail from working-class backgrounds. There is little information on middle- and elite-class GNC people, though it is believed that they do not publicly identify as GNC because of concerns about access to family/financial support and inheritance (Semmalar 2014). In the few cases where GNC people from higher class backgrounds publicly identified themselves, their financial, social, and familial support was withdrawn (Semmalar 2014). Thus, it may be partly due to their marginalized class backgrounds that working-class GNC people can publicly claim GNC identities, whereas middle- and elite-class GNC people’s privilege blocks them from doing so. Whereas older GNC categories (particularly hijra) are associated with poverty and the working classes, transgender is becoming associated with middle-class status, making it an attractive category for working-class people seeking upward mobility. The trans women I interacted with express anxieties about being conflated with hijras partly because of their similarities in class location. The attempts by these trans women to draw hard boundaries between themselves and hijras indicate that the transgender–hijra distinction is an aspirational and anxious projection rather than an uncontested divide.

Across the world, transgender is a relatively new category. Newer identity categories circulate and are taken up within complex and historically varied social hierarchies. Recent research on the circulation of transgender in the global South has established a connection between middle-class aspirations and the transgender category. In the Philippines, David (2015, 189) finds that transgender women are incorporated into global labor markets when “their gender expressions (appearance, conduct and dress) . . . remain within certain limits deemed respectable,” which privilege middle-class markers such as education, fluency in English, and upward mobility. In Indonesia, Hegarty (2017, 91) asserts that male-assigned GNC waria claim transgender identities to signify their “productivity, [and] normative middle-class aspirations.” In Brazil, Jarrin (2016, 367) argues that working-class, male-assigned GNC travesti, who are portrayed by middle-class publics as “unrefined,” “crass” sex workers, are pressured to claim respectably “anglophone” and middle-class transgender identities.

As sexual and GNC categories are incorporated within existing hierarchies, scholars increasingly focus on processes “whereby certain transgender bodies are valued, counted, [and] recognized . . . while others are marginalized, rendered abject, [and] excluded” (Kunzel 2014, 287; see also Haritaworn 2015). In Indonesia, the language of transgender increasingly produces waria as marginalized, abject subjects (Hegarty 2017). In Brazil, in comparison with the middle-class, “palatable” category of transgender, travesti are rendered “illegitimate and undesirable” (Jarrin 2016, 369). These studies suggest that transgender is connected to middle-class status and respectability, whereas other GNC categories are rendered abject.

Understanding how transgender is associated with middle-class status offers valuable contributions to scholarly understandings of the global circulation of transgender. In the global South, the intersection of gender and class occurs under the backdrop of power relationships that are partly a result of (post)colonial experiences. Thus, a nuanced, ethnographic approach that considers how historical contexts produce specific, varied social hierarchies and how transgender is incorporated within these hierarchies is essential. Whereas existing literature focuses on emergent hierarchies mediated by class within GNC groups, my research examines how historically and culturally specific narratives about gender inflect these hierarchies in postcolonial societies.

India offers an intriguing site to explore how transgender identity claims circulate within historically specific gender hierarchies in a postcolonial context. Through an 18-month ethnographic study in Bangalore from 2009 through 2016 with groups of transgender women, nongovernmental organization (NGO) workers and sexual rights activists, as well as textual analyses of media representations of hijras and trans women, I draw on research about “new woman” archetypes around which middle-class Indian women’s access to opportunity has historically been narrated (Ciotti 2010; see also Rajan 1999; Thapar 1993) to argue that the discourses of empowerment and respectability that impacted middle-class cisgender women in late colonial, postcolonial, and liberalized India are impacting how trans women narrate their struggles and newfound opportunities. Instead of challenging stereotypes of gender nonconformity most apparent in the stigmatization of hijras, the transgender women I spoke with are at pains to articulate their difference from hijras. As they claim transgender identities, these trans women favorably contrast themselves with the discursive figure of the hijra to contain the stigma associated with gender nonconformity and position themselves closer to the ideals of respectable womanhood. These trans women’s identity claims echo the claims of “new” womanhood historically used to describe newfound opportunities for middle-class cis women. Like the construct of the working-class woman “other” used to differentiate “new” (cis) women, the discursive figure of the hijra—stigmatized and tainted with a pronounced lack of respect—is employed by trans women to differentiate themselves as they pursue proximity to middle-class womanhood. This discourse reveals the (middle-) class aspirations of this group of trans women, the mutual interdependence of class and gender identities, and the salience of cultural narratives for oppressed groups seeking to stake claims on respectable identities.

Hijras and/vs. Trans Women: HIV/AIDS outreach, and GNC differentiation

India is an intriguing site to explore transgender identity claims partly because of the historical presence of hijras in South Asia. Hijras are often imagined under the rubric of transgender (Dutta and Roy 2014), yet my research indicates efforts by some transgender women to differentiate themselves from hijras. These efforts occur under the backdrop of recent shifts in sexual and gendered identity categories that are partly the result of internationally funded HIV/AIDS projects undertaken by sexual rights NGOs. NGOs often hire visibly GNC people to authenticate themselves as “community”-focused organizations, opening up additional avenues of employment for visibly GNC people, who may previously have undertaken occupations available to hijras, such as sex work and soliciting money.

Hijras comprise the most prominent, publicly recognized group of sexual and GNC people; historical archives indicate the presence of hijras in South Asia for at least the past 300 years (Reddy 2005; see also Cohen 1995; Nanda 1990), while popular accounts place hijras in the region for the past several millennia. Among non-hijras in India, hijras are often interpreted as embodying a multitude of sexual and gender non-normative characteristics (Puri 2015). Hijras are most often male-assigned GNC people who leave their families in their teenage years (usually due to abuse for their gender expression and/or perceived sexuality) and come to live and work with others “like them” in communal living spaces known in Bangalore as hamams with their lineage-based hijra families. However, the boundaries between hijras and other male-assigned GNC categories are shifting and unstable; many people associated with hijras do not unambiguously identify with the term hijra.³ Despite activism and outreach by NGOs over the past 25 years, hijras continue to be disparaged within the “general society” because of their poverty, their supposed dirtiness (Hinchy 2014), their association with gender and sexual deviance, and their generally marginal status.

As a group considered “high risk” for transmitting HIV/AIDS, hijras are targeted by NGOs through HIV/AIDS prevention and outreach programs. These programs target working-class groups of GNC people assigned male at birth who express varying degrees of gender nonconformity and identify themselves with a broad range of terms. Through their programs, NGOs have interacted with (and sometimes altered the meanings of) these terms (Boyce 2007; Cohen 2005; Dutta 2012a). Activism and outreach by NGOs have introduced newer identity categories, broadening the kinds of identities people can claim (Boyce 2007; Cohen 2005; Dutta 2012a). Beginning in the early 1990s, organizers of HIV/AIDS interventions sought to differentiate between “target groups” to ascertain which groups to prioritize for intervention (Boyce 2007; Dutta 2012b). This process of differentiation between different sexual and GNC identities hardened and solidified what were previously malleable identity categories (Boyce 2007; Dutta 2012b).

Around the same time HIV/AIDS funding regimes separated sexual and GNC identities into discrete groups, the language of transgender gained currency and the hijra identity became increasingly circumscribed (Dutta 2012b). HIV/AIDS projects initially classified all male-assigned sexual minorities and GNC people as Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), eclipsing the gender variance among this group (Boellstorff 2011, 296; see also Dutta 2012b). In response, activists demanded that HIV/AIDS interventions recognize feminine-presenting people who do not identify as male (Dutta 2012b). This shift was impacted by the introduction of the category of transgender via international sexual health conferences in the 1990s and early 2000s. Over a period of time, Indian GNC activists began to identify themselves as transgender and translated this new category into their own languages (Dutta 2013). Around this time, lineage-based hijras “colluded” with NGOs and media in an effort to position certain hijras as “authentic” based on their participation in lineage-based families (Dutta 2012b, 832). Whereas “transgender” has been embraced as an umbrella term that accommodates gender variation among male-assigned people (Dutta 2012b) and, much less frequently, female-assigned people, the hijra identity has become increasingly circumscribed.

As a socially marginalized and (usually) economically disempowered group, hijras face employment discrimination, which usually confines them to soliciting money and sex work. Throughout India, hijras are highly visible when soliciting money in groups (Puri 2015). Ethnographic research indicates that hijras have engaged in sex work for at least the past 30 years (Nanda 1990; Reddy 2005). Although the association between hijras and sex work was less obvious in the past, it is becoming more explicit, partly because of sexual health research collected and disseminated through NGO-led HIV/AIDS outreach projects. Indeed, I often heard that sexual rights NGOs are accused of spreading information linking hijras to sex work through HIV/AIDS interventions. In South India, as a result of NGO outreach combined with hijras’ lack of employment options, the hijra category is often associated with sex work.

Throughout India, there are increasingly visible groups of working-class, male-assigned GNC people who publicly identify themselves as transgender.⁴ The majority of trans women I interacted with are connected to sexual rights NGOs and many have been NGO employees at some point. These transgender women usually position themselves as “independent” from hijra groups, though they often have connections with hijra groups. The majority of trans women over age 30 years during my fieldwork period identified as hijras at some point. I also met “independent” trans women who did not reside in hijra communal houses, yet they maintained hijra family relationships and considered themselves part of hijra groups to some degree. Although many of these trans women are connected to hijra groups, they undertake identity work to raise awareness and promote understanding of their identities; this work often focuses on delineating (and thus reifying) the differences between themselves and hijras, the group with whom they are most likely to be confused.

A key reason these transgender women can claim identities in proximity to middle-class womanhood is the ability for visibly GNC people to obtain respectable, middle-class office employment in sexual rights NGOs. To authenticate themselves as community organizations, NGOs prefer to hire “community people” (sexual and gender minorities) to represent the NGO to funding organizations and the public. Likewise, their underemployed constituents increasingly expect NGOs to provide them with respectable office employment.⁵ Although the number of GNC people who obtain paid positions at NGOs is very small in relation to the estimated number of GNC people in Bangalore, trans women associated with NGOs are highly visible in various media, where they make identity claims, thus impacting public perceptions about transgenderism and gender nonconformity.

Gendered Constructions of Class: Discourses of Empowerment, CIS Women’s Employment, and Respectability

To understand the hardening boundaries between this group of transgender women and hijras, it is instructive to examine notions of cisgender women’s empowerment in India. GNC people’s access to employment via NGOs is connected to notions of “empowerment through employment” initially applied to cis women. In postcolonial India, the increased participation of middle-class, educated cis women in the workforce is encouraged to develop the nation. Transgender women’s desire for office employment encompasses desires for upward mobility and to fulfill middle-class standards of womanhood. However, cis (and trans) women’s workforce participation is circumscribed by the mandate of respectability that must govern their actions.

“Empowerment” is a key concept driving advocacy in the development and NGO spheres. Empowerment refers to processes wherein people who were denied “the ability to make choices” gain this ability (Kabeer 1999, 13). Notions of empowerment focus on inequalities impacting people’s ability to make choices (Kabeer 1999). Particular emphasis has been placed on the empowerment of women, whose choices are often constrained.

In India, women’s ability to choose paid employment is tied to class and respectability. In the nineteenth century, for all women except those from poor and elite classes, employment signaled a loss of respect and status (Ganguly-Scrase and Scrase 2009). After India gained independence, women’s workforce participation was sought to develop the nation, and women’s “empowerment through employment” is a key goal of the postcolonial state (Ganguly-Scrase and Scrase 2009, 81). Today, a salient marker of class identity for middle-class people is “a desire for women to be publicly visible and have relative freedom to pursue careers” (Ganguly-Scrase and Scrase 2009, 82).

At least twice in the past 200 years, when middle-class women confronted enhanced choices for public participation, these changes were narrated through the language of the “new” Indian woman. In both cases, the new woman and the opportunities available to her exist alongside a binary construct of her “other,” a working-class woman whose opportunities remain constrained. The new woman’s enhanced opportunities come into sharp relief only when she is juxtaposed with her “other.”

At the end of the nineteenth century, the status of women in India was a critical issue, as it signaled to British colonizers India’s level of “modernization” (Thapar 1993, 82; see also Bhatt, Murty, and Ramamurthy 2010; Rajan 1999). To increase participation from middle-class, educated women, the construct of the “new woman” was created alongside her working-class counterpart, the “common woman” (Thapar 1993, 82). The new woman was educated and could easily adapt to shifting political contexts, whereas the common woman was uneducated and sure to encounter difficulty responding to change (Thapar 1993, 83). Whereas the new woman embodied “the virtues of cleanliness, companionship, discipline and self-control,” the common woman was “coarse, promiscuous and vulgar” (Thapar 1993, 83). Common women undertook disreputable occupations, whereas new women were associated with proper femininity and motherhood and hailed from class backgrounds that did not require their paid labor. (Thapar 1993, 83). While the new woman construct offered enhanced possibilities for middle-class women, they had to avoid being characterized as common women; ultimately, these constructs contained and circumscribed women’s participation (Thapar 1993).

Following the liberalization of India’s economy, another “new woman” appeared. Her counterpart is the “traditional Indian woman,” described as “docile and homely,” in contrast with the new woman, who is “aggressive, confident, urban” and exhibits a sexuality previously reserved for “vamps” in Bollywood films (Oza 2006, 22; see also Rajan 1999). In contrast with representations of Indian women as “oppressed, burdened, and backward,” the new woman is “assertive, in control and particularly modern” (Oza 2006, 29; see also Rajan 1999). While the new woman “quickly became iconic of liberalized India,” her supposed freedoms were not uncontested; she became a repository for public anxieties around India’s newly opened borders and the cultural changes engendered by liberalization, sparking public debates (Oza 2006, 22). These debates produced a reworking of the new woman, highlighting “her relationship with the patriarchal household—as mother, wife, and sister” (Oza 2006, 30), foregrounding her relationship with men and “anchoring her to the home” (Oza 2006, 35). Although the new woman remains connected to opportunity, her opportunities are circumscribed by her participation in the heteronormative family.

A salient part of the new woman’s identity is her unstated middle-class status, which enables her to access opportunities open to a small fraction of Indians under liberalization (Bhatt, Murty, and Ramamurthy 2010; see also Fernandes and Heller 2006). The figure of the new woman suggests that economic liberalization empowers women “to express themselves and satisfy their aspirations in ways not previously possible in a closed economy” (Oza 2006, 27). Discourses presupposing a link between women’s empowerment and liberalized economic policies are met with suspicion from feminist scholars. Skeggs (2004) argues that upward mobility and interpreting oneself as an autonomous individual are “resources” that are distributed unequally. Certain groups, like working-class women, must remain in place, enabling middle-class women’s mobility (Massey 1994; see also Bhatt, Murty, and Ramamurthy 2010). Similarly, the discursive figure of the hijra must stay in place to make apparent the newfound opportunities available to trans women.

Access to office employment via NGOs, combined with the emphasis on empowerment through employment for cis women, paves the way for (particularly younger) transgender women to imagine fulfilling their class aspirations by closing the gap between themselves and middle-class womanhood, symbolized by the appealing figure of the new woman. The identity struggles among the transgender women I interacted with are inflected with notions of “new woman[hood]” grounded in a discourse of enhanced possibilities for (middle-class) women in a liberalized economy. These trans women draw on a similar discourse to position themselves as empowered, like other “new women” in Indian history, while juxtaposing themselves with their disreputable “other,” the hijra. The power and promise of the transgender woman come into stark relief only when she is contrasted with the figure of her “other,” the hijra.

Background and Research Context

In India, movements for sexual rights developed their “infrastructure” in urban areas, where diverse networks of people come together (Shah 2014, 9). The same cities that face increased urbanization and class inequality are also important sites for sexual minority community and activism (Shah 2014; see also Dave 2012). Bangalore, once known as the information technology (IT) capital of India, has witnessed the tensions and contradictions of economic change. Although there is an assumption that migrants to Bangalore are highly educated, middle-class IT workers, migration of working-class and (formerly) rural-based groups has risen dramatically in the past 25 years (LCLUC “Urbanization in Bangalore”). Migrants can expect a higher income, increased educational opportunities, and enhanced “business prospects” (LCLUC “Urbanization in Bangalore”), yet Bangalore is known for its high cost of living, and new migrants struggle to find sustainable employment.

It is in this context that sexual rights activism in Bangalore emerged. From its inception, activism for sexual minority rights has included voices of working-class as well as middle-class sexual minority groups. This is atypical, given the dominance of middle-class sexual minority concerns in other large Indian cities in the 1990s and early 2000s. This can be partly attributed to the work of a small group of middle-class sexual rights activists. While this group was conducting field research to document abuse against sexual minorities, they began to uncover and raise awareness about how sexuality and gender-based discrimination are compounded by other axes of identity such as class, caste, gender, religion, and ability. These activists made strong efforts to reach out to working-class people and encouraged them to become involved. Many of these working-class people were hijras and other feminine-presenting GNC people; this group became increasingly active in sexual rights groups and movements in Bangalore.

Data and Methods

My argument is grounded in two empirical exercises. Over 18 months from 2009 through 2016, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with groups of hijras, transgender women, and NGO staff as part of a larger project examining the impact of internationally funded NGOs on community formation and relationships within sexual and gender minority groups in Bangalore. From 2009 through 2011, I spent 2-12 weeks in the field per year and from 2012 to 2013, I lived a few hours from Bangalore and regularly traveled to the city to conduct fieldwork. My longest continuous stretch of fieldwork was for 9 months in 2013–2014. In 2016, I conducted two final weeks of fieldwork.

My time in the field was initially spent in NGO offices interacting with staff and “community” members and observing day-to-day activities, from which I wrote copious fieldnotes. I also helped staff members write emails in English, located grants the organization could apply for, taught conversational English classes to a group of female sex workers, and compiled a report documenting current projects. Additionally, I participated in all sexual rights–focused events, rallies, and protests in the city, where I met other activists not associated with NGOs, whom I started meeting with regularly. In an NGO setting where foreign visitors are not uncommon, I was initially met with mild curiosity. As my fieldwork progressed, my language skills improved and, in the words of one participant, I “kept on coming back”; I slowly gained people’s trust and (often) friendship, though my position as a white American woman undoubtedly shaped our interactions and impacted how people represented themselves.

After honing in on key dynamics through fieldwork, I conducted more than 75 semistructured interviews. The interviews lasted between 45 minutes and 5 hours, and most interviews took place at the participant’s home, an NGO office, or, occasionally, a restaurant or coffee shop. I conducted approximately half the interviews in Kannada, half in English, and three additional interviews in Hindi. The majority of participants self-identified as hailing from working-class backgrounds, while a minority of people identified themselves as middle-class. Most of my interviewees were people I met during fieldwork, and occasionally someone would arrange for me to interview a new person. After obtaining consent, I digitally recorded each interview; when the interview was complete, I wrote detailed notes about the experience.

During this time, I also collected and analyzed more than 200 English-language news articles about sexual minority rights and GNC people’s struggles over identification. Although I would occasionally search for news articles and videos online, I often found relevant sources through social media, where my participants posted them. Using social media to gather these reports allowed me to access a pool of media representations that circulate among my participants, influencing the way they understand and articulate identity claims. Analyzing ethnographic data alongside online media representations offers a contextualized picture of how transgender women in my field site represent themselves in daily interactions as well as in materials that circulate to a wider online audience. During the analysis phase, I compared these media representations, my fieldnotes, and the line-by-line coding of my interview transcripts to form the key foci my analysis is based upon.

Findings

Trans Women vs. Hijras: Media Accounts of Trans–Hijra Distinctions

India has witnessed a virtual explosion of media coverage around gender and sexual nonconformity in the last 25 years. Although this coverage initially focused on hijras, reports about gender nonconformity have focused increasingly on transgender women. These reports highlight the differences between transgender women and hijras, thus reifying these differences, while teaching readers and viewers to make these distinctions. Especially in the past five years, there have been several articles in major newspapers that focus on the distinction between trans women and hijras, generally positioning trans women as closer to the ideals of womanhood than hijras.

In an article from the Hindu, a well-known sexual rights activist described as “the voice of the sexual minorities, especially in the South,” A. Revathi is praised for her distinctness from hijras. Revathi, who was once associated with hijra groups and now identifies as a trans woman, is said to “beli[e] the image of a hijra. There’s no makeup, no gaudy dressing and no exaggerated mannerisms. In a simple cotton green kurta and a handbag slung over her shoulder, Revathi is your regular working woman one encounters on a local train” (Mary 2014, 1). Here, Revathi is depicted as a “regular” woman who exercises modesty as evidenced by her “simple” attire and controlled comportment, in contrast to the “gaudy dressing” and “exaggerated mannerisms” associated with hijras.

Another article, in the Times of India (Krishner 2015), delineates the differences between hijras and trans women. This article focuses on the “transgender vs. hijra debate” in the North Indian state of Bihar, which is in the beginning stages of creating a Transgender Welfare Board to advocate for legal protections for trans people. The article reads,

The battle for controlling the board is between transgenders and hijras. Exasperated transgender activist Reshma Prasad says, “The hijras are hogging all the space and are trying their utmost to run the board.” Now wait a minute, aren’t hijras transgenders? “That’s the point. Hijras are a type of transgender, but the vast majority of transgender people are not hijras,” says Reshma. “I am not a hijra. . . . I do not sing and dance and ask for alms. And I have a right to be upset when I am called a hijra, or confused with a hijra.” (Krishner 2015, 1)

Here, transgender-identified Reshma is at pains to articulate her difference from hijras, particularly the fact that “I do not sing and dance and ask for alms,” while she insists upon her “right to be upset” if these differences are unrecognized. In emphasizing the differences between trans women and hijras, these differences are reified and serve to educate Times of India readers to make what is posited as a crucial distinction between the two groups.

Trans Women and Employment: Media Accounts of Trans Women’s Newfound Opportunities

News media reports increasingly portray transgender women as having enhanced avenues for employment, creating an association between transgender women and increased opportunity. By the late 2000s and early 2010s, there were limited reports of a few trans women hired in “mainstream” (middle-class) occupations such as talk show host (Nolen 2009), radio disc jockey (India Unheard 2011), and newsperson (ILGA [International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association] 2012). These initial reports appeared in news outlets that reach a relatively limited readership and possibly consists of people already interested in trans issues (as in the ILGA report). By the mid-2010s, these reports had picked up significantly and they began to appear in more mainstream media sources with a wide readership, such as The Hindu and India Today. Many refer to the transgender women hired in the language of India’s “firsts”: first transgender pastor (UCA News 2013), first transgender news anchor (Qureshi 2014), first transgender college principal (The Hindu 2015), first transgender engineering student (Dalit Camera 2016), first transgender police officer (India Today 2017), first transgender legal assistant in Delhi High Court (Salaria 2017), first transgender Judge of the People’s Court (Acharya 2017), and first transgender medical student (Mathew 2017). These reports detailing trans women’s accomplishments often read like “rags to riches” stories of heroic outcasts who overcome obstacles to triumph in their professions, as evidenced by the title “How a Homeless Graduate Became Andhra Govt’s First Transgender Employee” (Aranha 2018).

These news reports paint an optimistic picture of the opportunities available to transgender women. The language of “firsts” suggests that other transgender women will soon follow in these professions. Indeed, a year after Chennai’s first transgender police officer, Prithika Yashini, was hired, 27 trans women were “inspired” to take the Police Recruitment Examination in Chennai (Times of India 2017). Increasingly, media write about several trans women together as “transgender icons” (Almeida 2017), who “were the firsts in their fields” (India Today 2018), and trans women “trailblazers in their fields” (Kathuria 2018). As these reports indicate, transgender women are associated with newfound employment opportunities, promise, and social progress, in contrast to the figure of the impoverished hijra, who is confined to stigmatizing occupations such as soliciting money and sex work.

“We Will Not Do Like Hijras Do”

Although the transgender women I interacted with are not the only group of sexual- and gender-nonconforming people who are keen to avoid being characterized as hijras, they express the most palpable concern of any other group, as evidenced by this excerpt from my fieldnotes from the first LGBT Pride week organizing meeting of the year. This meeting was held at a civil society organization near the main commercial area of the city, and the 20 or so people in attendance included representatives of the main autonomous and NGO-affiliated sexual rights groups, making the meeting a mixture of people from various backgrounds and social classes.

October 10, 2013

The most salient discussion involved how to fund the Pride celebrations. When the topic initially came up, someone suggested collecting individual contributions. Suneetha, a queer feminist activist, excitedly agreed, saying that the festival of Divali was coming up, so everyone would be going to lots of parties and playing card games. So at that time, she explained, individuals can ask people if they will donate. Playing off this idea, Rohit, a middle-class gay man, enthusiastically suggested that groups of people get together and go around the city to collect donations in areas where there are a lot of people. This suggestion solicited a lot of indistinct, concerned murmuring. Sultana, a working-class trans woman NGO employee seated near me, sat up straight and widened her eyes, saying, in a mix of Kannada and English, “but we shouldn’t force anyone to donate, like if they say no, they don’t want to donate, we should not push them to.” Then, Roshan, a middle-class gay man who was moderating the discussion, said in English, “Yes, of course. All donations should be voluntary and if people do not want to donate, then we should leave them alone.” By this time, there was a lot of loud discussion going on, so in order to make sure everyone understood, Roshan held up his hands and, raising his voice, repeated that the donations will be voluntary and no one is permitted to harass anyone who is unwilling to donate. In case the meaning of the conversation was not entirely clear, he concluded, “We will not do like hijras do.”

This incident illustrates the tensions surrounding the association of all sexual- and gender-nonconforming people with hijras. The suggestion that groups of people could collect donations in public places was met with anxious murmuring from everyone at the meeting, indicating that the association of hijras with aggressive behavior when soliciting for money was a subtext of the discussion long before Roshan clarified that they were not to replicate the behavior associated with hijras. It is significant that the distress at the thought of their group being misrecognized as hijras was first voiced by Sultana, a working-class trans woman who is likely to be interpreted as a hijra. For her, it is especially important to ensure that the distinction between hijras and other working-class trans women like herself is clear.

A similar incident took place at the first planning meeting for Queer Pride held the previous year. At this meeting, there was a discussion of how to organize the rally and performance that would occur after the march. A working-class trans woman NGO worker, Leena, emphasized that the skits and dance performances must include a message (“they can’t be for entertainment’s sake alone”), so they needed to explain this to participants. Then Leena got a thoughtful look in her eyes and asked, “Should we regulate the speeches that people can make? Because someone will come and start doing (mimicking the distinctive clapping associated with hijras and speaking in a high-pitched voice) and we can’t have that.” While several people appeared amenable to this idea, a middle-class gay man, Tahir, frowned and quickly said he’s very uncomfortable with that idea and if they make too many regulations, they might not get anyone actually willing to participate. Soon after, the subject was dropped. To my knowledge, this issue was not resolved.

Again, it is notable that a working-class trans woman put forth the suggestion of regulating behavior, specifically so that people do not engage in behaviors associated with hijras. Like Sultana, Leena did not directly state that this was an issue about distinguishing themselves from hijras because she did not need to: that association was implicit.⁶ Working-class trans women occupy subordinate positions in hierarchies of class and respectability, yet those I interacted with are keen to distinguish themselves from the more marginalized position of hijras by condemning behaviors associated with hijras.

“Modern Girls”: Working-Class Trans Women and Middle-Class Aspirations

At an NGO office one day, I sat in a small, front room leading to the office with a group of four to six people, having a discussion about the organization’s work with sexual minorities. Deepa, a transgender-identified healthcare worker dressed in fitted jeans and a V-neck shirt with a bright scarf thrown over her shoulder, expressed palpable excitement while explaining the kind of work the organization engages in; she enthusiastically moderated the discussion. When I asked a young, shy feminine-presenting person wearing a deep green sari if she identifies as a hijra, before she could answer, Deepa explained, “the people who are . . . living in the hamams, following the tradition of the hamams, they are called hijras. She’s a modern girl; she’s educated, she’s literate. She’s called transgender.”

Indu, a soft-spoken woman in her 50s wearing a coral-colored sari, looked serious as she said she does not want to be interpreted as a hijra. Despite the fact that she was part of a hijra group for many years, she continued, she does not want people to know that she is associated with hijras. She explained, “See, I being a transgender or I being a hijra, if I see a group of hijras outside, you know, I won’t come, [pause] I’m not comfortable going and talking to them. I’m not comfortable. Their dressing, the way of their loudness—I’m not comfortable. I really avoid them.” At this point, Deepa jumped in, saying emphatically, “Sometimes I want to hide my identity in front of them. I want to give money to them and [dramatic hand motions suggesting send them away].”

This conversation is revealing of the tensions for transgender women around being identified as hijras. Deepa compares hijras, defined as people who live in hamams and follow traditions set by hamam-based hijra leaders, as entirely distinct from “modern,” educated, and literate “girls,” who are best referred to as transgender people. To distinguish hijras and trans “girls,” Deepa implicitly draws on the traditional/modern divide, yet equally important are notions of respectability that overlap with class, employment, and education. Indu’s characterization of hijras as loud and unattractively dressed mirrors middle-class media accounts characterizing hijra behaviors as improper and threatening to disturb properly behaved middle-class cisgender people. Deepa’s desire to “hide [her] identity” so that the hijras (and perhaps others around her) do not assume that she is one of them, suggests her fear that, in being recognized as a (working-class) GNC person, people will assume that she is a hijra. The thought that she could be perceived as a hijra provokes her to do something (give money) to ensure they leave quickly so she is no longer faced with such a potentially embarrassing dilemma.⁷

Sex Work vs. Office Work: The intersection of GNC Identity and Employment

The distinction between hijras and transgender women is explicitly linked to employment, which is connected with (middle-class) notions of respectability. Many hijras express frustration that sex work and soliciting money are their only means of employment, sometimes stating that they should not have become hijras, which effectively foreclosed other avenues of employment. Younger trans women have reported that elder hijras encouraged them not to join the hijras because doing so would make their lives difficult. When Akrithi, a trans woman activist, met hijras for the first time, she felt an affinity with them that might have persuaded her to join the group if some hijras had not discouraged this. She explains,

Even the hijras advised me not to become like them. Because they were very worried about their economic status, their condition in society. People advised me not to become like them, [saying] “don’t come with us. Don’t wear a sari. Don’t do begging or sex work.” They gave such good advice. . . . Good people. (laughs) They took care of me.

Occupations that hijras engage in—sex work and soliciting money—are undesirable forms of employment because these are stigmatized jobs. For hijras and trans women seeking alternate employment, an important consideration is whether their work can be considered “dignified,” since hijras are denied entry into dignified professions. Suma, a trans woman in her early 30s who was once part of hijra groups, explains, “see, that’s my dream. Like, everyone has to work, but dignity is very important. Begging and sex work are not bringing you any dignity.” Similarly, as Girish, a queer feminist activist, explains, “all said and done, there is a certain dignity to walking into office in the morning for a trans woman and sitting in an office space and, you know, doing some paperwork.” Additionally, Suma explains, the more trans women who obtain jobs outside of sex work and soliciting money, the less GNC people will be associated with stigmatized employment. These shifts in employment opportunities are especially important when considering how one’s natal family will react upon realizing that their child is gender nonconforming. As Suma explains,

For example, if a family comes to know [their child is] a trans woman, they might feel bad, but ultimately their idea is that one day my son is going to be a beggar or one day, my son is going to be a sex worker. How can a parent accept it? But if they think, OK, you are a trans woman, but still if you’re working with dignity, if you’re working in a mainstream job, that is different, the feeling is different.

Office Employment and Contemporary Womanhood: Trans Women’s Middle-Class Aspirations

These working-class trans women’s desires for respectable employment are also connected to their social class aspirations, which mediate how trans women describe themselves. The opportunity to work in an office, which is constructed as “empowering” for middle-class women, opens up possibilities for working-class GNC people to identify as middle-class women. When discussing their employment options, trans women draw from discourses promoting women’s independence and from popular rhetoric connecting office employment to the middle classes. Manisha, a transgender woman in her 50s, explained that as a teenager when she joined the hijras, she refused to do sex work. She explained, “I want to work in a nice job. I want to work how all the ladies are working. Ladies and gents [men and women], all are working now, right? Like that, I want to work in the world. [And with] that money only, I want to live.” Here, Manisha expresses a desire to support herself through a “nice job,” meaning middle-class office employment. She justifies this desire by explaining that now, women also work in such jobs alongside men, suggesting that these aspirations draw on notions of women’s independence, progress, and empowerment through paid (office) employment.

Many trans women I spoke with emphasized their desire to engage in jobs that “normal” and “proper” women undertake. Kanika, a trans woman in her 40s who once identified as a hijra, explained that she does not like sex work, and this was her least favorite aspect of being part of hijra groups. She earnestly explained, “I want to be like normal girls, study and get a job, like normal girls,” a reference to the options available to “normal” educated, middle- and elite-class girls. Kanika is at pains to align herself with respectable middle-class femininity, assuring me that she’s a very peaceful person who “do[es]n’t like to get into any conflicts.” Among hijras, she explained, “you have to be rude, rough, it’s like that,” which she could not cope with because she is “totally feminine.” During the ten years or so that she was part of hijra groups, she was “not comfortable with those people.” She explains, “I always wanted to be a girl from the time I was very young, that’s it,” widening her eyes in an attempt to highlight her difference from hijras.

“I Am Not a Hijra”

The 2016 “I am Not a Hijra” photo project reveals how some trans people emphasize their difference from hijras. This project received significant media attention and criticism throughout India, suggesting that some trans women’s desires to clarify their distinctness from hijras are salient (and contentious) issues beyond my field site. As one of the six organizers of Transgender India explained, their goal is to demonstrate that “there are transgender people who have regular jobs and lead ordinary lives,” and to “give young transgender persons ‘positive role models’ to look up to” (Das 2016, 2). However, this series contains negative stereotypes about gender nonconformity within the discursive figure of the hijra, distances trans women from this figure, and educates the public about the existence of transgender identities that are respectably middle-class.

The 17 photos in the “I am Not a Hijra” series depict trans-identified people holding signs that cover their faces (except for one, who wears a burqua). The signs all begin with the same statement, “I am trans*,” followed by facts about the subjects’ lives that serve to mark them as contrary to stereotypes about hijras, and they all end with the same sentence, “I am not a hijra.” The individuals in the photos are pictured in a variety of backgrounds, ranging from in front of an escalator (perhaps at a mall or corporate office), outside of a hospital, in a gym, on a wooden bench outside, in an inexpensive restaurant, or outside of an ophthalmology office, and several photos look as though they were taken inside the person’s home. The majority of photos (14 of 17) feature feminine-presenting trans people dressed in a variety of clothing, including several sundresses, a burqua, a sari, and T-shirts. The series was first published on the online platform The Better Indian, where it was later taken down because complaints that it expressed anti-hijra sentiments (Sengupta 2017). Subsequently, the series was published on the websites Buzzfeed and The Logical Indian.

Like the trans women I spoke with, the trans people pictured emphasize how their employment (and, thus, class) status serves as a key marker of their difference from hijras. Five of the 17 cards in the photos mention the holder’s upper-middle-class occupations (including surgeon,⁸ corporate worker,⁹ and physical therapist¹⁰) and the fact that one person earns a “six-figure” salary (Figure 1)¹¹ and another is “not a sex worker”¹²—thus distinguishing the trans people pictured from the figure of the impoverished hijra who is confined to the stigmatized occupations of soliciting money and/or sex work.

Figure 1:

Photos in the “I am Not a Hijra” series.

The trans people pictured draw on middle-class standards of femininity to situate their sexuality as contrary to the supposedly unrestrained sexuality displayed by hijras. In one photo, the sign indicates the trans woman is “not a sex maniac,”¹³ and another photo insists that the trans woman pictured is “not loose.”¹⁴ These photos draw on stereotypes of hijras as displaying an overt, and therefore improper, sexuality in order to position the trans woman pictured, whose sexuality is restrained, as clearly distinct from hijras. Another sign states that the person holding it is “asexual,”¹⁵ compared with the hypersexuality that hijras are assumed to embody. Another photo indicates that the trans woman pictured “do[es]n’t like makeup,”¹⁶ in contrast to hijras who are assumed to enjoy wearing an inappropriate amount of makeup.

One photo links middle-class respectable femininity, family status, and Hindu devotional practices to claim the trans woman pictured as absolutely distinct from hijras.¹⁷ The card this trans woman holds emphasizes her familial status, writing that she is “a daughter, sister, wife and mother,” followed by the refrain “I am not a hijra” (Figure 2). Here, the implication is that hijras cannot claim such familial statuses and are therefore excluded from proper, family-oriented womanhood. This trans woman is wearing clothing and jewelry symbolizing proper, respectable middle-class femininity, and she is pictured in front of a South Indian temple, thus linking respectable family-oriented femininity with Hindu devotional practices, while implying that hijras do not participate in familial and religious institutions.

Figure 2:

Photos in the “I am Not a Hijra” series.

In the final photo included in the series,¹⁸ the trans person holds a sign asserting “my rights are women’s rights too.” By connecting the rights of trans people and the rights of women, then emphasizing the pictured trans woman’s lack of association with hijras, hijras’ lack of rights is elided and perhaps even supported. Claiming rights for trans people, including the ability to have your gender identity recognized instead of being lumped into one GNC category, is a goal that can have liberatory potential. The group’s stated intention in circulating the photo series was to amplify Indian trans people’s voices, carving out a space of recognition of their identities (Sengupta 2017). However, this demand for the recognition of multiple GNC identities hinges largely on differentiating trans women from hijras, whose stigmatization is unchallenged. As one Transgender India organizer explains, the photo series seek to establish that “I am a trans person. I am as normal as you. And I am not a hijra” (Sengupta 2017, 1). This “normal[ity]” relies on a construction of womanhood that is synonymous with middle-class respectable femininity through invoking middle-class signifiers and reifying the implicit understanding that hijras lie outside of this “normal[ity].”

Conclusion

Building on recent scholarship on the circulation of transgender, this research details how feminine-presenting transgender identity claims are incorporated into historically and locally specific social hierarchies in India. As previous research indicates, gender intersects with class in ways that increasingly position transgender as middle-class in the global South. However, gender intersects with class under the backdrop of power relationships that are partly a product of the (post)colonial experience. Understanding how transgender becomes incorporated within gender hierarchies requires a nuanced, ethnographic approach that situates transgender in specific locations, exploring how transgender circulates within historically varied social hierarchies.

Like their cisgender counterparts during the colonial, postcolonial, and contemporary period, transgender women in India are perceived as encountering newfound freedoms, which some trans women narrate by drawing on powerful “new [cis] woman” “archetypes” (Ciotti 2010). Thus, the discourses of empowerment and respectability used to narrate cis women’s shifting access to opportunity affect how some trans women perceive and represent their struggles. The opportunity to engage in office employment via their participation in NGOs combined with the ability to identify as transgender are key factors enabling these trans women to claim proximity to respectable middle-class womanhood. The opportunities available to transgender women, as with their cis women counterparts, are circumscribed by the figure of their “other,” with whom transgender women must ensure they are not confused.

An important topic that falls outside the scope of this research is how caste intersects with class and gender for GNC people in India. The pre- and postcolonial history of caste (Bayly 1999; Dirks 2001; Viswanath 2014), its grounding in gender hierarchies (Chakravarti 2003; Gupta 2016), as well as its complex contemporary realities in urban and rural India (Jodhka 2015) make this a salient topic for future research on the circulation of transgender in India.

For the trans women I interacted with, identifying as transgender opens up possibilities for economic stability, upward mobility, and independence that are not available to hijras. In their pursuit of respect and opportunity, these trans women align themselves with respectable middle-class womanhood and pursue entry into middle-class employment. Thus, “I am not a hijra” is both a collective claim and an individual claim on upward social mobility. By positioning their identities within the gender binary while simultaneously pursuing class mobility, these trans women demonstrate the centrality of the gender binary coupled with elevated class status for feminine-presenting GNC people’s intelligibility and acceptance in India. Like the single women Berry (2008, 19) interviewed in North India, in their attempts to position themselves as respectable, these trans women “inadvertently reproduce the discourse which governs them,” thus supporting and reinforcing patriarchal constructions of womanhood.

These trans women’s desire for incorporation into the gender binary and class hierarchies can be read as a desire for inclusion within the category of (middle-class) woman. However, processes of inclusion often produce “deadly outcomes” for groups that fall outside the boundaries of the newly included (Haritaworn et al. 2013; see also Brandzel 2016; Spade 2015). In their efforts to distance themselves from the negative associations of gender nonconformity most evident in the stigmatization of hijras, these transgender women implicitly support the marginalization of hijras and thus engage in “murderous” tactics of inclusion (Haritaworn, Kuntsman and Posocco 2013) predicated on the exclusion of hijras.

Footnotes

Author’s Note:

I am grateful to all participants of this research, who gave generously of their time and invited me into their lives. Thank you to Jyoti Puri, Gretchen Purser, and Ted Gerber for their support and comments on early drafts and to the anonymous reviewers at Gender & Society. Earlier versions of this research were presented at meetings of the American Sociological Association, the International Sociological Association, and the Annual Meeting of South Asian Studies. This research was supported by a Junior Research Fellowship from the American Institute for Indian Studies.

ORCID iD

Liz Mount

1.

I employ the broad category of gender nonconforming (GNC) to refer to people whose dress, demeanor, and comportment are recognizably at odds with the gender they were assigned at birth. Although generally considered a neutral term, GNC has been criticized by some trans people who do not appreciate being referred to as “nonconforming.” As Serano (2014) points out, the language used to describe marginalized groups can quickly become subject to contestation. Recognizing that this term is imperfect, I emphasize Serano’s point that language is not the problem per se, but that it is the existing marginalization that causes negative connotations to adhere to the terminology referencing marginalized groups ().

2.

I use “transgender” or “trans” to denote people who self-identify as such, while considering that any identity claim is probably shifting and does not preclude identification with other terms (Cohen 1995; Dutta 2012a; ; Reddy 2005). By contrast, in media and state discourse, transgender often denotes GNC people (usually those assigned male at birth), including hijras (Dutta 2012b; Dutta 2013; Dutta and Roy 2014), though, as I demonstrate, there are instances where media is instrumental in reifying distinctions between transgender women and hijras.

3.

As Reddy (2005) indicates, feminine-presenting people who identify with other terms, such as zenanas in Hyderabad, are often associated with hijra groups, despite not identifying themselves as hijras. Another group associated with hijras, kothis, are sometimes at pains to assert themselves as separate from, and even superior to, hijras (Hall 2005). During my fieldwork, I interacted with many kothis who were part of hijra lineages and participated to some degree in hijra groups, though they did not present themselves (or desire to be recognized) as hijras. There are also groups who present themselves as hijras and engage in occupations undertaken by hijras, yet they are not part of hijra lineages and may not be recognized as hijras by hijras who participate in such lineages (Dutta 2012b; see also ).

4.

In India, “transgender” most often denotes male-assigned people.

5.

Although NGO employment can be lucrative for educated English speakers, the majority of NGO staff members that I interacted with (and as recognized in the literature) are fieldworkers from the working classes, whose work is poorly compensated and precarious (Ahmad 2002; ). Despite this, NGO employment offers a degree of respect often denied to GNC people; thus NGO work is desirable.

6.

This dynamic is similar to Dutta’s finding that working-class, feminine-identified kothis in West Bengal voice disagreement with public behavior deemed “excessive or aggressively campy”; their disapproval is “especially evident during Pride meetings where there have been repeated complaints against [such] disruptive practices” (, 129).

7.

This conversation, occurring in a sexual rights NGO, illustrates Dutta’s point that “even at the moment of protesting against transphobia, a division emerges between the innocent and victimized transgender and unruly trans-people who behave badly in public” (, 132).

8.

Figure 5, online appendix.

9.

Figure 9, online appendix.

10.

Figure 4, online appendix.

11.

Figure 1.

12.

Figure 3, online appendix.

13.

Figure 10, online appendix.

14.

Figure 8, online appendix.

15.

Figure 6, online appendix.

16.

Figure 7, online appendix.

17.

Figure 2.

18.

Figure 11, online appendix

Liz Mount is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Flagler College. Her research interests include gender, inequality, culture and social change.

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