Hijra (South Asia)

• 1. Introduction

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  In 2006, revenue officials in the city of Patna began taking hijras along to collect unpaid taxes, and the hijras earned a 4-percent commission. Hijras are transgender, intersex or eunuch people of South Asia. They live in tight communities with their own rules of kinship, and several governments now recognise them as a third gender, neither fully male nor fully female. Their place in society has swung between honour and persecution. This documentary asks how hijra communities actually work, and what the many names for them reveal. It asks how people once trusted with royal households ended up registered under colonial law as a criminal tribe. It also asks what the courts and parliaments of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh now say about them.

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• 2. Names and Identities

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  The word hijra is Hindustani, and English translators long rendered it as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite". Between October 2013 and January 2014, a transgender experts committee of India's Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment held a series of meetings. Hijra and other trans activists asked there for "eunuch" to be dropped from government documents, since the communities do not identify with it.

  In Tamil, the older words aravani and aruvani are often considered derogatory, and in-community terms have replaced them. Thirunangai means "respected woman", thirunambi means "respected man", and thirunar means "respected person". These words reject the idea of hijra in favour of a broader trans identity. Kannada speakers say mangalamukhi, Gujarati speakers say pavaiyaa, and Sindhi speakers say khadro. In Pakistan, khwaja sara is the more respectable term. The community has reclaimed it because of its precolonial origins and its more accepted status.

  The word kothi is common across India, and it names a different identity. Kothis are feminine men or boys who take a feminine role in sex with men. They do not live in the intentional communities where hijras usually live. Local equivalents include durani in Kolkata, menaka in Cochin, meti in Nepal and zenana in Pakistan.

  The usual partners of kothis and hijras are men who consider themselves heterosexual. Those partners have names too, including panthi in Bangladesh, giriya in Delhi and sridhar in Cochin. A 2015 study found that self-identified panthi participants called themselves bisexual, though they matched male-typical patterns on its other measures. These categories cover gender presentation and preferred sexual position as well as attraction, so Western labels such as gay or lesbian do not map neatly onto them.

  A common belief in Indian society holds that every hijra is intersex, asexual and impotent. Most hijras were assigned male at birth, and few are intersex. Many are sexually active, in relationships, or do sex work. Some in India define themselves instead by renouncing sexuality altogether.

  An interview-based study found two schools of thought under the hijra umbrella, called Khusrapan and Zananapan. Followers of Khusrapan identify as hermaphrodite and reject sex work. They rely on the ancient practice of offering prayers and blessings. Followers of Zananapan may be born biologically male but identify as women through appearance and lifestyle. Social exclusion often pushes them toward begging or sex work. Many transfeminine activists in India reject the third gender label altogether, saying it is pinned on trans women who do not see themselves that way.

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• 3. Gurus and Chelas

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  At the top of each gharana sits a naayak, the head and main decision maker. A gharana is a hierarchical lineage that links hijra groups from different areas. The naayak sets policy for the whole community.

  Below the naayaks are the gurus, a word meaning teachers. Each guru governs daily life in a household space called a dera. The followers of a guru are called chelas. Guru and chela are old words from religious learning. Among hijras they describe cultural learning, because the guru teaches each chela the customs of the community.

  In the 21st century, many hijras live in well-defined all-hijra communities led by a guru. Over generations, these households have gathered people in abject poverty and people who were rejected by their birth families or fled them. They resemble what Western writers call found family. Members refer to each other in feminine terms. A member of similar age is a sister, and an older member is an aunt.

  Some hijras go through an initiation rite called nirvaan. It involves the removal of the penis, scrotum and testicles. Not every member undergoes it.

  The community also built a secret language called Hijra Farsi. Its sentence structure is loosely based on Hindi, and its vocabulary runs to at least a thousand words. Kinship terms shift meaning inside it. Dadi, the standard Hindi word for a paternal grandmother, is used to address one's guru's guru. Even beyond the Urdu-Hindi speaking areas, hijras still use this vocabulary within their own native languages.

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• 4. Court and Colony

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  The ancient Indian erotic text the Kama Sutra mentions feminine people of a third sex, called tritiya prakriti. Readers have interpreted the passage as describing men who desired men, so-called eunuchs, male and female trans people, or two kinds of biological males. The Puranas name three kinds of divine beings of music and dance. Apsaras are female, gandharvas are male, and kinnars are described as neuters. The early Manu Smriti explains that a third sex could result when male and female seed were equally present.

  Hijra identity and culture are documented as evolving during the Delhi Sultanate, from 1206 to 1526, and the Mughal Empire, from 1526 to 1707. Hijras served royal and aristocratic households as guardians and servants of harems, and some held administrative posts. Their closeness to the elite lifted some to high rank as military commanders, political advisors and revenue collectors called mansabdars. Rulers of kingdoms such as Awadh and Maratha had hijras take part in court and religious ceremonies. They received varsasans, which were cash allowances, and imams, which were rent-free land grants.

  The picture has a darker side. The eunuchs who served sultanates and empires were often slaves who were castrated by force or coercion. Their numbers stayed small, because eunuchs were the most expensive and elite kind of slave, bought only to meet the demand of royalty and nobility. In the 1650s, Franciscan travelers noted "men and boys who dress like women" roaming the streets of Thatta in Sindh. They took the sight as a sign of the city's depravity.

  Beginning in the 1850s, British colonial authorities set out to end hijra practices. They called them "a breach of public decency" and judged hijras incapable of "moral transformation". Hijras were already criminalised by Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 1861. Authorities of the North-Western Provinces then sought a special law against them. By 1870, no high-ranking British official argued against special legislation to address what they called the "hijra problem". Lieutenant-Governor Edmund Drummond, who lived from 1814 to 1895, framed the campaign as a necessary project.

  The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 brought hijras under registration and monitoring. Another law outlawed castration, a marginal practice, though it was rarely enforced. Economic costs meant hijras and other so-called criminal tribes could not be shut away from colonial society as a whole. The act also barred hijras from possessing children. Administrators argued that hijra children could not consent to the initiation, and the act blocked it on those grounds.

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• 5. Gods and Legends

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  Hijras practise a syncretism that draws on several religions, and they perform rituals for both men and women because they see themselves as neither. Most are devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, of Shiva, or of both. The primary temple of Bahuchara Mata stands in Gujarat, and hijras make pilgrimages there. Two unrelated stories tie her to transgender behavior. In one, she appears as a princess who castrates her husband because he would run in the woods and act like a woman instead of sleeping with her. In the other, she curses a would-be rapist with impotence and relents only when he agrees to run in the woods and act like a woman.

  Gayatri Reddy documents that Indian hijras who identify as Muslim also take in aspects of Hinduism. She argues that this does not make them any less Muslim, and that they practise Islam no differently from other Muslims. In Hyderabad, she records a group of Muslim converts who were circumcised, which is seen as the defining marker of male Muslim identity.

  One form of Shiva, called Ardhanarishvara, is a composite figure whose other half is Parvati. Hijras identify with its gender ambiguity and treat it as a patron. According to legend, the sage Bhringi wished to honour only Shiva and walked around him in worship while ignoring Parvati. Furious, she cursed him to lose all his flesh and blood. Bhringi became a skeleton who could not stand, so onlookers blessed him with a third leg. Parvati then punished herself with austerities that pleased Shiva, and he granted her union with him. That union forced Bhringi to worship the divine couple as one.

  In some versions of the Ramayana, a crowd follows Rama into the forest when he leaves Ayodhya for his 14-year exile. Rama tells all the "men and women" to turn back. On his return he finds the hijras still standing where he spoke, since they were neither men nor women. Moved by their devotion, he grants them the boon of blessing people at births and weddings. This boon is the origin of badhai, in which hijras sing, dance and give blessings.

  The Mahabharata has Arjuna take the identity of a eunuch-transvestite during his exile and perform rituals at weddings and births. Another episode concerns Aravan, who offers his lifeblood to the goddess Kali to secure victory for the Pandavas. On the night before the battle he wishes to marry before dying. No woman will wed a man doomed within hours, so Krishna, in the form of Mohini, marries him. South Indian hijras claim Aravan as their progenitor and call themselves aravanis.

  Every April and May, hijras celebrate an eighteen-day festival at a temple in the village of Koovagam, in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu. The temple honours Koothandavar, who is identified with Aravan. Hijras reenact the wedding of Krishna and Aravan, then mourn Aravan's sacrifice with ritual dances and by breaking their bangles. The festival also holds an annual beauty pageant and health seminars on HIV and AIDS. The BBC Three documentary India's Ladyboys and the National Geographic Channel series Taboo both show hijras attending it.

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• 6. Life at the Margins

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  The Indian lawyer and author Rajesh Talwar wrote a book titled The Third Sex and Human Rights about abuses suffered by hijras. Most hijras live at the margins of society with very low status, and the word hijra is sometimes used as an insult. Few jobs are open to them. Many earn income by performing at ceremonies, called toli, by begging, called dheengna, or by sex work, called raarha. Sex work was already recorded as an occupation of eunuchs in premodern times. Violence against hijras, especially those in sex work, is often brutal and occurs in public spaces, police stations, prisons and homes.

  In October 2013, Pakistani Christians and Muslims, both Shia and Sunni, pressed the landlords of Imamia Colony to evict any transgender residents. I. A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said, "Generally in Pakistan, Khwaja Sira are not under threat. But they are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province because of a 'new Islam' under way."

  An ethnographic study in Bangladesh found that many hijras remembered childhood abuse and isolation from classmates for presenting as feminine boys. Many also described abuse and humiliation from teachers. School became an unfriendly place, and many were reluctant to stay in education. That lack of schooling feeds into unemployment. Hijras in Bangladesh also report sexual harassment at work, removal from jobs when outed, and refusal of jobs outright, on accusations of disturbing the workplace. Many turn to sex work, where clients may harass them, force unprotected sex or assault them. Fear of harassment from police often keeps them from reporting it.

  Physicians often turn hijra patients away, saying their presence will disturb other patients. Many hijras hide their identity or cannot disclose illnesses such as sexually transmitted infections. In Dhaka, hijras had the highest syphilis rates of any at-risk group in the city. In 2008, HIV prevalence among hijra sex workers in Larkana, Pakistan was 27.6 percent, against an estimated 0.1 percent among Pakistani adults generally. In a Pakistani study, 40 percent of the sample reported forced sex or abuse, and 58 percent had sexually transmitted infections, most often syphilis and gonorrhoea.

  An Indian study of 68 transgender participants found intense feelings of low self-worth, shame, depression and suicidal thoughts. Respondents had absorbed the negative views of the society around them. Many lacked a support system after rejection by family or unstable romantic relationships. In 2002, nearly 5,000 people attended the All India Eunuch Conference in Varanasi, whose platform demanded that universities and government open more job opportunities.

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• 7. Law and Courtrooms

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  The governments of India, in 1994, and Pakistan, in 2009, recognised hijras as a "third sex", which granted them the basic civil rights of every citizen. Bangladesh followed in 2013, and hijras there became eligible for priority in education and certain low-paid jobs. The Bangladeshi government never defined the term. Nepal also accepts a third gender in law. India, Pakistan and Nepal include an option for it on passports and certain official documents, and in India the option is the letter "E" for eunuch.

  Recognition on paper has limits. In India, a citizen must identify as male or female in order to vote. In the 2009 general election, India's election committee denied candidacy to three hijras unless they declared themselves male or female. In Pakistan in 2013, transgender people first got the chance to stand for election. Sanam Fakir, a 32-year-old hijra, ran as an independent candidate for Sukkur in the May general election.

  In the 1990s, about 10,000 people belonged to a national organisation called Treetiya Panthi Sanghatana. As of 2003, its president was Kajal Nayak.

  On the 11th of December 2013, India's Supreme Court re-criminalised homosexual sex. Physical, psychological and sexual violence against the transgender community then rose sharply at the hands of the Indian Police Service. Police often did not investigate reports of sexual assault against them.

  On the 15th of April 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India. Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan wrote that transgender people are often treated as "untouchables" in public places. He placed the moral failure in "the society's unwillingness to contain or embrace different gender identities and expressions". He framed the matter as human rights, saying, "These TGs, even though insignificant in numbers, are still human beings and therefore they have every right to enjoy their human rights." The court ordered that hijras and eunuchs be treated as a "third gender" for safeguarding their rights under Part III of the Constitution. It also upheld the right of transgender persons to decide their self-identified gender, and directed governments to grant legal recognition as male, female or third gender.

  A bill backed by all political parties was tabled in the Indian parliament to give transgender people benefits akin to those of reserved communities. It also aims to secure school enrollment, government jobs and protection from sexual harassment. On the 6th of September 2018, the Supreme Court overturned Section 377, the law that had criminalised anal and oral sex.

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• 8. Stage and Screen

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  Gayatri Reddy writes that hijras have been mainstreamed into popular films, but that "given this history of near invisibility, the recent attention focused on hijras has been unsettling for both hijras and non-hijras." Indian cinema has shown hijras since its beginnings, historically as comic relief. A turning point came in 1974, when real hijras appeared in a song-and-dance sequence in Kunwaara Baap. In Amar Akbar Anthony, from 1977, hijras accompany the hero Akbar, played by Rishi Kapoor, in the song "Tayyab Ali Pyar Ka Dushman".

  Mani Ratnam's Bombay, from 1995, was among the first sympathetic portrayals. In the 1997 film Tamanna, the actor Paresh Rawal plays Tiku, a hijra who raises a young orphan. Deepa Mehta's Water, from 2005, features Gulabi, a hijra played by Raghubir Yadav, who introduces the outcast widows of Varanasi to prostitution. The 2022 film Gangubai Kathiawadi, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, features Raziabai, played by Vijay Raaz, a hijra sex worker who rules over the prostitutes of Kamathipura.

  Hijras appear in fiction as well. Khushwant Singh's 1990 novel Delhi has Bhagmati, a hijra who works as a semi-prostitute and is wanted in the diplomatic circles of the city. Arundhati Roy's 2017 novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness features a Muslim hijra character named Anjum. In Tamil, Su. Samuthiram published Vaadamalli in 1994, the first Tamil novel about the Aravaani community.

  The activist A. Revathi was the first hijra to write about transgender issues and gender politics in Tamil. Her works have been translated into more than eight languages, and her book is part of a research project at more than 100 universities. Unarvum Uruvamum, meaning Feeling and Form, was the first of its kind in English from a member of the hijra community. Her book The Truth about Me: A Hijra Life Story is on the syllabus for final-year students at The American College in Madurai.

  Pakistani television took up the subject in 2003 with Murad, an award-winning telefilm for Indus TV. It won Best TeleFilm and Best Director at the 2003 Indus Telefilm Festival. Well-known male actors played hijras, and they used interviews to support hijra rights for the first time. In 2004, Kamran Qureshi directed Moorat, a 33-episode series nominated for Best Drama Serial at the Lux Style Awards 2005. It was credited with helping viewers understand the pain and abuse hijras endure. The 2011 Urdu-language film Bol cast Almas Bobby, a transgender actor, in a rescuing role.

  Outside the subcontinent, Craig Thompson's graphic novel Habibi has its protagonist Zam adopted by a group of hijras. John Irving's 1994 novel A Son of the Circus features them prominently. Megha Majumdar's debut novel A Burning has a hijra named Lovely among its point-of-view characters. HBO's 2005 documentary Middle Sexes and the 2020 documentary Showgirls of Pakistan each include a segment on modern hijras. Dev Patel's directorial debut, Monkey Man, released in 2024, shows a commune of hijras giving aid to its hero.

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