When Donald Trump ran for office he seized on transgender rights as a political hot button issue.
One of his enduring campaign slogans went “Kamala Harris is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
And soon his administration declared the official policy of the United States would be to recognize only two genders - male and female.
At that time it seemed India had suddenly pivoted ahead of the United States when it came to transgender rights., After all in India there was always acceptance of a third gender.
In 2014 the Indian Supreme Court officially recognised the third gender as a minority that deserved protection and rights. Gay rights could be dismissed as a western aberration but no one said the same of the transgender population.
All Indians had grown up seeing hijdas on the streets, begging, panhandling, performing at weddings, blessing babies. They seemed as old as time itself. And indisputably Indian.
But now India’s transgender community and its allies are out on the streets in protest
PROTEST
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
The protests stem from that same court ruling that gave them rights and protection. The Indian government just introduced a bill to define who exactly could get those rights and protection. And in the process it removed the right of self determination.
Now you either had to be certified by a state appointed medical board. Or part of an old tradition like the hijdas with their communes and gurus. Thus erasing many other kinds of non-binary people including trans men.
For years activists had used the stories of hijdas in epics like the Ramayana as proof that transgender people were always part of Indian heritage. In the Ramayana, Lord Rama tells all the men and women of his capital of Ayodhya to return home while he goes into exile into the forest. When he returns 14 years later, he finds a group waiting patiently. They are the hijdas. They didn’t go back because they were neither men nor women.
That story gave a certain kind of transgenders visibility. But in seizing upon it the government invisibl-ised many other kinds,
Not all transgenders in India are hijras. Living in communes led by a guru, making a living on the streets.
Many are like Grace Banu, transgender and Dalit, the so called untouchables in the Hindu caste hierarchy in India. Her problems were different. When she confirmed her gender identity, the school principal imposed all kinds of rules
GB1: I should come school early and I should leave from the school. Uh, uh, you know, uh, before all the, uh, students, uh, leave. And I couldn't talk with anybody, I couldn't enter into the classroom.
She had to sit outside the classroom and listen to the lessons. Banu’s family, poor and rural, struggled to cope as well. Yet she persevered and went to engineering college. She thought she was paving the way.
GB2: I said, I'm the first trans person, but, uh, when you give the opportunity for me, uh, lot of people like me, they will get an opportunity to get the, uh, education rights to get this kind of opportunities.
But though Banu broke stereotypes getting into college was not the happy ending to her story. Were colleges ready for her? Simple things like bathrooms which became such a flashpoint in US politics.
GB3: Of course, we need a gender neutral washroom in the all the spaces. But how do we implement in the school level?
Her solution? A harsh one of self-denial
GB4: Speaker3: every day. 730 morning, 730. I should be, you know, use the bathroom in my home. And the whole day I won't drink water.
Not until she finally returned home at around 8pm.
Choices that left her she says with health problems. But she graduated and landed a job as an engineer. Which came with stability and benefits but also inequality.
GB5: When I did the surgery, the, uh, the sex reassignment surgery, my gender affirming surgery, and they didn't even give a leave. Uh, but, uh, we have a, uh, maternity leave for the women.
The story of a Grace is simultaneously about a transgender person breaking old glass barriers AND about the challenges of trying to find a one size fits all solutions for the issues faced by such a diverse community.
The government’s proposed bill tried to find the smallest box to fit the least number of people. But transgender people in India are out on the streets demanding a solution thats out of the box as well.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW.