Revathi: A Life in Trans Activism by A.Revathi, translated by Nandini murali
Breasts and long hair – is this a woman? Beard and moustache – is this a man? But what of the soul, which is neither man nor woman?
—Devara Dasimayya, tenth century mystic and Kannada poet
Fear. I was scared to walk on the road for fear of people recognizing me. I was worried someone might mock me while I walked on the road. I was afraid the police might arrest me. I held back from taking the bus because I wasn’t sure who I could sit next to. I was scared to use the public toilet for fear that people might know I was different. I was scared that rotten tomatoes might be thrown at me in the market. I was scared of falling in love for fear of being punished hard. Fear of everything and anything.
Why am I so scared? This question haunted me. Was I afraid because I knew my life would be difficult now that I had become a hijra? Because I was raised as a boy and now wore female clothes? Was it because of the way I lived – cast aside by parents, unrecognized by society, penalized by law and begging or doing sex work for a livelihood? What mistake had I made? Didn’t my mother carry me for ten months like she did my siblings? Why did I have to suffer this fate? Why should I live in perennial fear all my life? Can’t people understand how much I am suffering – I’m like the curd churned by the ladle or the worm burnt in the heat of the sun?
Is there a God at all, one who created us with male bodies bu gave us female feelings? Are my parents responsible for this? Am I simply impudent to put on this garb? Who am I? Which gender do I belong to? Is it right or wrong to be like this? Where will I find answers to my questions?
In India, Ardhanareeswara, the half-male and half-female form of Shiva, is worshipped. But why would such a country abuse hijras? How could those of you who have read the story of Shikandin in the Mahabharatha refuse to understand hijras? Are basic human rights meant only for males and females? Aren’t hijras human enough to enjoy those rights? Aren’t we citizens of this country? Don’t we deserve to get voting rights, passports, driving licenses, ration cards and property rights? How justified is it to say that since I was born a male, I can get access to all these only if I remain a male? Don’t I have the right to reassign my gender identity? Why do you refuse to understand me and my emotions?
I did not purchase these emotions; nor did I borrow them. I was made thus by nature. Respect that. Recognize me as a woman and give me all the rights due to a woman. This plea for equality and human rights for transgender people has been the pivotal point of my transgender activism.
Myths and misconceptions about gender and sexuality have spread like poison in our society. We urgently need an antidote for this. I am a trans woman. This simply means that although I was seen as a male, even as a child I always felt that I was female. In India, we belong to the hijra community. In Tamil Nadu, we are known as Aravani or Thirunangai.
Several years back, I underwent surgical castration, sex change and hormone therapy to transition to womanhood. Since then, I have never looked back. But life as a woman has been a series of challenges. Even today, my greatest challenge is to live as a woman with respect and dignity.
People like me, whose experience of gender is different from what has been imposed on us at birth, face widespread stigma and discrimination. It begins in childhood because we are ‘different’ from the other children. For example, I loved to draw kolams, the beautiful floral and geometric rice flour designs women drew outside their homes in South India, to help my mother in the kitchen, I preferred to play with girls and to dress up as a girl. It seemed most ‘natural’ for me to do so. My family thought that this was just a passing phase. However, to their horror, when they realized that it was not, they began to punish me severely to make me behave like a ‘normal’ boy. At school, teachers and students made fun of me. I was called ‘ombodu’, ‘ali’ and ‘pottai’, all derogatory terms used to describe trans women and kothis.
Like me, every other hijra across caste goes through immense pain, sorrow, anguish, sexual violence and human rights violations. We are isolated and shunned by society.
For the past seventeen years, I have been spearheading a campaign to address such issues through my role as a researcher and independent activist for the rights of gender minorities in South India. Unarvum Uruvamum was my first book. It was written in Tamil and later translated into English and Hindi. After the book was released, I attended a number of conferences in South India. I also met several ministers and VVIPs and gave them copies of the book in the hope that they would read it and do something for our transgender community. Unfortunately, as I realized later, they did not even open the book. But even if they did not, others did. Indeed, I feel humbled to acknowledge that some of the welcome developments related to gender and sexuality have sprung from my earlier book, The Truth about Me (2010), which has currently been translated into seven Indian languages.