Page 20 - Tehelka Issue 15 August 2018

Kashmir

Transgenders:

Trapped in

women body

For society, transgender people are the most. Her parents and siblings
usually men, who want to become would later laugh it out.
She said, “I was more into boy’s
females, but there is more to it- stuff — I adore playing football,
females fighting for sexual identity, to cricket, cut my hair short. I love to
wear cargo pants and t-shirts.”
become male, and Kashmir, as a society By grade eight, Afreen was sure
is in denial mode writes safina nabi that she either is a lesbian or a gay
but the gender dilemma started
to affect her activities as well as Anand who teaches at the Univer-
arlier, Kashmir turned a studies. sity of Westminster, London.
blind eye to the rights and In 2014, the Supreme Court pro- After seeing the support and the
privileges of the transgen- nounced a landmark judgement, encouragement that Afreen has re-
der community, however, recognising transgender people as ceived, her family locked her within
E the increasing awareness the ‘third gender’. the four walls of her room. The
through social media and its influ- In the judgement, also known as worst thing happened when she
ence is changing the mentality of the National Legal Services Author- went to meet Professor Anand dur-
people towards the hapless com- ity (NALSA), the apex court ruled ing his one visit to Srinagar. “I was
munity. Kashmir as a society is be- that people of the transgender com- denied food for five days and my
ginning to accept the transgender munity have equal privilege over phone was snatched from me. They
community, who majorly sing folk the fundamental rights enshrined burnt my clothes in front of me and
songs in marriages or are match- in the Constitution. The individuals taunted me of being a ‘laanch’. A
makers. What society understands have the right to self-identification pained Afreen narrated.
that transgender people are usually of their sexual orientation but the “I am not troubled about what
male, who want to become females, social stigmas linked to the commu- they would call me. Let them call
but there is more to it-females fight- nity continue to exist in the society. me a ‘laanch’; ‘Hijra’ or ‘Transgen-
ing for sexual identity, to become Although things have started to der’ but I want my identity. I want
male, and we as a society are in change in a positive direction in the to be addressed as ‘Adam’ and not as
denial. And to gain their identity, metro cities, in Kashmir valley, the ‘Afreen’, ” he further added.
several transgender people have state is yet to give the due rights to In August 2017, the Supreme
to cross many hurdles to achieve the transgender community. Court’s verdict towards the uplift-
what they aim to and the fight is Afreen, who is pursuing her ment of the transgender people
continuing. graduation in engineering from declared Right to Privacy as a fun-
Afreen’s family is originally from one of the prestigious colleges in the damental right. The ruling enabled
district Pulwama in South Kashmir, Valley said, “Life became extremely protection of sexual orientation of
around 30 kms from the main city difficult with time. Family, friends, citizens.
of Srinagar. They had shifted to Sri- relatives started being rude and Afreen had attempted suicide
nagar before Afreen’s birth. There- mistreatment started to increase thrice but now she is optimistic
fore, Afreen had stayed all her life in more often.” about life and plans to learn new
Srinagar. Frustrated with the affairs of day languages. He is interested in writ-
19-year-old Afreen was fasci- to day life, Afreen started to vent out ing and wants to become an activist
nated towards girls when he was her anger on social media and start- one day.
in grade five. Whenever his moth- ed to write about his gender. Soon, “This is possible only when I
er would come to drop him at the people started supporting him and complete my studies and acquire
school bus stop, Afreen would al- one of the supporters happened a status in the society then only I
ways tell her about the girl she liked to be the noted Professor Dibyesh will be heard or taken seriously

tehelka / 15 august 2018 20 www.tehelka.com