The Third Gender

Kaleen Rodriguez ENC 1102 Exploratory Essay The Third grammatical gender What is the component part of the third gender in to the south Asia? How does Asian companionship learn the third gender? I walked into my best friend Joels manner this morning extremely excited to expect lunch with him afterward a long four months without seeing him and on my journey to his room I picked up a paper that was lying by his door. I picked it up and the title was Hijra as I continued to read this paper, it had me very intrigued, fast. It so happens that earlier that week I was talking to my mom or so vanity Fest which is a LGBT festival here in South Florida.So, my question arose, how do others across the world draw what we recognize as the LGBT biotic club (Gay,Lesbian,Bi-sexual, and Transgender)? , and determination this paper alone made my thought much concise, what is The Third Gender? In the west we have LGBT and we also have drag queen who ar men who act as women for a short e nd of time beneath certain circumstances and it is acceptable. The definition of gender as a consummateative (Butler) is defined as how you act in your society. Doing research for this exit was meaning(a)ly easy honouring several(a) points of views was the harder part.Looking through scholarly essays I was able to find With Respect to Sex Negotiating Hijra indistinguishability in South India by Reddy, Gayatri and The Hijras of India. by Nanda, Serena. Two of which were my primary resources for what I am about to explain. In South Asia there is LGBT, scarcely what they con gradientr cross dressers, and transvestites atomic number 18 called Hijras which generally is considered a third gender role in India. Hijras argon males who dress and act as females. There be rites of passage for becoming a Hijra.This rite of passage includes the act of removing the genital organ and burying them in the ground which basically show theyre devotement to the Hijra look style, but less t han 10% actually commit to eliminating their genitals (Gueste0d1c4). Hijras adopt female aspects and behavior. Some Hijras are sex workers and few are actors and that is how they earn a living, which causes them to withstand extracurricular of the city in their own communities. The ones that live in the community and are sex workers live in worse conditions then those who are performers (Reddy, Gayatri ).By performers I mean Hijras do performances at weddings and festivals. All of their performances are concentrate and essentially done for Bahuchara Mata (Mother Goddesses), who is worshipped all over India. Mother Goddess is give tongue to to have given the Hijras a special place in Indian society, so because of this, all Hijras devote themselves to her. Overall also the relationship with the Mother Goddess, the relationship that is most important in the Hijra community is the one with the Guru which is a master/teacher and also a pair of tweezers which is a disciple (Gueste 0d1c4).Therefore, when a person wants join the Hijra community they are taken to a city called Bombay and become acquainted with one of the major(ip) Gurus, in total there are seven. (Reddy, Gayatri) Being on the outside looking in. What gives the Hijras power also eliminates their power in society because they emasculate themselves to prove theyre actually Hijras, but in that spirit they could never be accepted in society because they could never be a man to produce children, which essentially is the role of a man.At time most Hijras are maltreated because of this. Hijras have rules under their own domain. The most prominent cultural aspect of the Hijra is the asexual description, although some(prenominal) Hijras are said to be homosexual (Nanda, Serena). They identify themselves as neither a man nor woman, being perfectly imperfect. As a Hijra, there are many another(prenominal) another(prenominal) times you might encounter a discourteous crowd and the way they show their res ponse towards this is to lift their skirts or dresses and show their maimed genitals (Nanda, Serena).Taking a few moments in my twenty-four hours to question what the Hijras really feel do they feel that they are in the wrong body as many trans genders claim or do they just wish to be of the icy sex? I wanted to see Hijras what they looked like, their gestures and all. I intractable to YouTube a video on them and I was able to find it and many different answers to my question above. It came to my attention that more than half of the Hijras record have been attracted to men from a very young age, or so they say.The first Hijra in this YouTube video began her story by saying that she perpetually admired the woman modus vivendi, wearing the gem in the middle of their eyebrows the wearable attire also known as a saree and as she grew up her walk became more feminine and the way she spoke only followed, basically insisting that she was born in the wrong body. Although, the other olive-sized percent in this video mostly agreed that as they grew up and were raised as a male, they just wanted to be like a woman but they are clear on the event that they were or are men (Ambujablues Channel).Becoming more engaged in the Hijra lifestyle I googled as a form of research and I simply typed in Hijra Culture the first thing that arose was a link to a slide show done in 2007. Here I plant the history of Hijras regarding the Karma Sutra (an ancient Indian text), which is said to have mentioned a third gender (Gueste0d1c4). This to Hijras must mean the world, mostly because it fair proves that theyre not just getting the transgender idea from the western culture, but that it has existed in the Indian culture long before.Being a Hijra was said to be a disturbing view to the South Asian society, but after India gained their independence the anti-Hijra law was removed. In many different places where I well-tried to find a statistic of how many Hijras there are, I could not find an accurate number but there is said to be someplace between 50,000 to 500,000 Hijras in South Asia (Gueste0d1c4). There are two significant theorys about Hijras, one is that every Hijras starts as a sex worker, then performer. The second theory is that they are everlastingly separate, either a sex worker or a performer never both.Rules only exist within their society, and once outside of the Hijra community these rules dont exist they are simply seen as a transgender person. The Hijras are very prone to being infected with human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS because of being sex workers. Truth be told, that is how they make a living even though their living is not anywhere adept a good standing. It is very difficult for a Hijra to be invited to perform in a wedding or a childs birth, so being sex workers is their best option. Hijras are not only maltreated emotionally but also physically.Those who are wholly against the Hijra culture abuse them, brutally. They beat them in their own homes, along the streets, in markets, even in police stations (Gueste0d1c4). Knowing this reminds me that this is something most transgender societies have in common, they are abused mostly verbally on the westerly side but the physical abuse is still taking action. As I continued my research I attempted to find various points of view on the Hijra, little did I realize there are really only three for, against, or nonchalant.I thought to myself well, most quite a little in the Western society have altered their point of view to for or nonchalant on the transgender topic and are disclosing being against it. Meanwhile, peradventure not as rapid but slowly, those on the other side of the world are adapting to this view or Third Gender as well. What I did as another form of research was conduct a survey in order to get a general brainpower on what others believe or think about the Hijra. I surveyed a total of twenty people. Ten of which were my family and friends and te n who were complete strangers.The response I generally received was whatever makes them happy basically proving that the outlook is switch drastically in comparison to a few years prior. I only received three responses out of twenty that were completely against the Hijra, and I also realized that those three people were all around the same age range which was 57-62. I believe that says something only because it is common that the aged(a) generations in our society are more likely to be against this innovative LGBT trend as they say. Only enforcing that as the generations increase it is becoming more accepted.All of this research has shown me that there is more to being a Hijra then what many of us know or think we know. It is something one must sincerely want and it is a decision you have to stick with no division how challenging times may get. Works Cited Ambujablues Channel, . Documentary . Youtube . N. p. , 2008. Web. 19 violate 2012. . Chisel, Jasmonae. The Hijras of Ind ia. Xavier University. Voice Lab no. 9. WorldPress. com Gueste0d1c4, India. N. p. , 2009. Web. 19 Mar 2012. . Meena Balaji and Ruth Lor Malloy. Hijras who we are Think Asia, 1997. 32 pgs. Print. Nanda, Serena. The Hijras of India. Journal of Homosexuality(1986) 35-54. Web. Reddy, Gayatri. With Respect to Sex Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. Chicago, IL University of Chicago, 2005. 78-98. Print. Reddy, Gayatri. Men Who Would Be Kings Celibacy, Emasculation, and the Re-Production of Hijras in coetaneous Indian Politics. Social Research Spring2003, Vol. 70 Issue 1. Print.