Eunuchs, Trans-gender, Trans-sexual

 

Eunuch, Transgender, Transsexual etc etc.

We shifted from Panchmarhi , my birth place, Dist Hoshangabad, now Narmadapur, in erstwhile CP,CI , now Madhya Pradesh to Pune in 1957, that made me around four and half year old at that time. You may not believe but I distinctly remember certain things from those times so vividly that I also sometimes wonder, how?

One of the pictures I remember from those times is of a tall masculine figure residing somewhere on my way to kindergarten. The most intriguing aspect about the figure was, half the times he used to wear men’s apparels in sun bright white, mostly spotlessly clean white dhoti and equally clean zabba. While on the other times, mostly in the evenings when I used to return from the school, he used to be her and wore Green nine yard Ilkal sari [mostly from Kolhapur side, which I got to know way later] and forehead smeared with vermilion in tons. She then made the rounds of nearby localities carrying a basket on her head having brightly polished brass mask of some goddess and asked for the alms in feminine gestures more feminine than the real female! Till very late I could not put him/her in the right perspective.

Only years later I came to know that he was Eunuch, or Hijra, a term for castrated male even accepted by Oxford/Collin’s dictionary. Point to be noted here is, real Hermaphrodite, having ambiguous sex characters or both, especially external at the time of birth, is a very rare occurrence, thus most of the eunuchs in India are castrated males who have undergone castration, not sex re-alignment, but just the removal of male genitals, due to various reasons under different situations. Sources say [Requires validation] that some are even not castrated and are full-fledged males but adorn the attire only to earn the money!

Though the times have changed I realized, even now the boundaries are still unclear.

It was/is really surprising that we were not taught about sex, gender in the actual curriculum then. There were no lectures on sexology! And now when I read about these newer nomenclatures, their definitions and meanings it still goes well above my head. For the beginners ‘Eunuch’ is a castrated male. Transgender is the one whose psychological gender does not match with his/her biological sex [More correct would be biological sex because Gender is having both the parts, Biological as well as psychological] but has not got the sexual alignment done so far matching both the aspects of gender. While transsexual is the one who has undergone sexual alignment surgery and now both the aspects of gender match but by birth they belonged to opposite sex.

Two things made me delve deep in the subject. One: Movie : ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’ and Second, two marriages solemnized recently , surprisingly in the interiors of Maharashtra, the area could still be labeled as backward, economically as well as sociologically.

Both deal with the same subject, Marriage between ‘Normal Straight [?!]’ male and a ‘Trans-woman, [transsexual] in movie and in the other real life instances, between a ‘Normal Straight’ male and a ‘Eunuch’. Should we assume that it could be about sexuality especially of the male from the pair?

Let me categorically and emphatically state here that I fully empathize with the souls involved in the process because they are the victims of their own personality, getting trapped in the sex/gender they do not find comfortable in!

But the doubts linger because, poor me belonging to the faculty of medicine!

In movie the protagonist is played by a normal female and not real Trans-woman. So the hero falling for her may not be that unacceptable. Let me exaggerate a bit. If that Trans-woman turns out to be say, Cleopatra, Mastani or from present day generation, Madhuri Dixit or Deepika Padukone who would feel sorry for the hero? Otherwise which ‘Normal’ male would fall for a Trans-woman having features of a well grown male? And here is the crucial question, if it’s so, what would the sexual orientation of that ‘Male’ be?

The figure, facial features could be changed only if the sex realignment is done before menarche/puberty. Even then in males certain masculine features remain because adrenal glands too secret certain amount of sex hormones and they are neither touched during castration nor removed in proper sex re-alignment. But who knows about one’s sexual orientation before puberty? Even if one does, for few years he/she would definitely be ridiculed for the idea. Sex re-alignment is not like going to the market and shop for the desired item. Most importantly sex realignment surgeries are time consuming ,exorbitantly expensive[ recently they have started doing them in government hospital to save gullible males from dying during unhygienic castrations done by the quacks] and require extensive assessments and counseling from the expert psychologists in the field. So this transgender phenomenon is mainly seen/restricted to the page third crowd. [But the hoopla created around it is unmistakable. I personally am being taken aback by such blatant glorification of one’s personal sexual choices.] Boy on the street who is confused about his sexuality [mostly having homosexual traits in the personality, abused by some pedophile and then feeling guilty about it  or labeled as feminine in his peer group] lands up in Matt of some Hijra Guru. The course there after I do not know.

As for the two marriages recently solemnized between a Male Bride Groom and Eunuch Bride, I simply do not know how to react. In both the cases grooms were very well aware that their brides are Eunuchs, were males at some point of time and not Trans-women. One of the eunuch brides said that he has undergone sex realignment surgery. Unlikely, because he proudly proclaims that he is from ‘Kinnar’ akhada. Another name for Hijra Matt. And in Matt, there in nothing like counseling, female hormone therapy or during sex realignment surgery, creation of artificial vagina. It’s just castration. While marrying an erstwhile male where does it put the groom? Marriage between same sex couples is legally banned in India! Or recently as new law has created category of ‘Third Gender’, is marriage between it and the first or either sex allowed?

You can stay together with any person of any sex, including the recently legalized third sex for the friendship, camaraderie, or because you just like/adore/love him/her but marriage? Does it not connote something more than that? I am deliberately omitting sex because there are other avenues to take care of it [ there is an ongoing hearsay that eunuchs offer greater sexual pleasures than the actual female] but ‘Till the death do us apart’ in Indian scenario seems incomprehensible.

Let me repeat again I am not against any of these sexual variations, and feel empathy for them because I feel the poor souls are trapped in the things they have not asked for, and already are going through their share of difficulties but certain aspects of all this scenario seem beyond me, as 1. Social observer 2. Medical practitioner and 3. Just the common man on the street.

I have some doubts about ‘Socio-Medical’ basis of such behaviors but this is not the platform so I leave it to the readers.