“If they see breasts and long hair coming,
They call it woman,
If beard and whiskers
They call it man
But look, the self that hovers in between
Is neither a man nor woman”
This is what, Devara Dasimayya, a devotee of Lord Shiva and saint of the Bhakti movement, wrote in the 10th century.
In her book Seeing Like A Feminist, Nivedita Menon has written about how saints of the Bhakti movement rebelled against normative notions of masculinity/femininity in medieval India (Menon, 2012).
The poem essenetially highlights how discussions around gender identities – though they may have been in different forms and versions in diverse contexts – have been in existence in India since several centuries.
An Indian Man’s Love for the So-Called ‘Feminine’
As a Hindu man in India, I grew up in a deeply patriarchal society which expected me to conform to their norms and be a complicit participant in subordination of women. In the words of Judith Butler (the famous gender theorist), I was expected to assert my masculinity and perform a role whose act was already established much before I had arrived on the scene, and whose script was engraved in stone.
Being brought up in a working-class family, my upbringing conditioned me to not question issues about sex and gender. I wasn’t aware of the difference between “sex” and “gender” and used the terms interchangeably until I was 21 when I became financially self-sufficient.
It enabled me to gain an independent – and not socially constructed – view towards who I was or what I wanted to be.
When I started spending money on things, I suddenly realised that I had an affinity towards purchasing clothes and products which are considered “feminine” in India. I found myself spending time in the women’s section, wearing pink clothes, experimenting with make-up and buying unisex items. I was doing things that were dismissed as “feminine” in India. I was often mocked at and made fun of, by my friends and others, who questioned my choices. I tried explaining to them that this is what I feel excited about and I do not want to change my way, but they never understood me.
A few weeks back, I was reminded of those times when I read American doctor Harry Benjamin’s words – “Gender is so deeply ingrained that it is impossible to change”.
Later, I started reading extensively around gender fluidity which empowered me to break the mould. My personal brush with gender fluidity – and the journey of attempting to discover my identity – influenced me to study gender as an academic discipline and pursue a Masters degree. I believe that gender can have endless definitions but one which resonated strongly with me is that of Chris Edwards – an American who underwent 22 surgeries in five years for a reassignment of his genitals.
In a blog for Vice, he wrote:
The fact is gender identity is not defined by what’s inside your pants; it’s defined by what’s inside your brain. It’s also something nobody questions or even thinks about unless it doesn’t match the body they were born with.
My Newfound Definitions of Gender
However, based on engagements with my peers, readings in my Masters course and conversations with friends, I would define gender in two ways:
- Gender is an endless process of individuation of one’s identity, which may or may not be influenced by social and biological constructs.
- Gender is what you feel, act, do and repeat, irrespective of the societal consequences. The gender binaries of a man and woman are scripted and performed – overcoming which, is dependent upon our conversations with family, friends and peers.
These “definitions” also raise several important – and inter-related – academic, contemporary questions which need more work.
Will we ever be able to distinguish between sex and gender concretely in practice? Can one fully understand the conceptual premises of gender? Will India ever decriminalise homosexuality? Will transgenders and inter-sex people ever get separate public toilets in India?
In the contemporary context, Facebook’s efforts to recognise varying gender identities is worth mentioning here. In 2014, it introduced 58 new different gender identities on its platform, which a user can choose from while registering. In 2015, it went one step further and introduced a blank – wherein users can fill in their self-coined gender identities. “Now, if you do not identify with the pre-populated list of gender identities, you are able to add your own,” said a Facebook announcement.
(Devanik Saha is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.)
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