“Didi, who is kinnar?”
“Can a man love another
man?”
“Why people become
hizras?”
“Can they also marry
and give birth to babies?”
 |
| Who are the 'others'? |
These are some of the
questions I have been bombarded with after I had conducted the session on ‘Puberty’,
‘Love, sex and relationships’, so we thought it is necessary to discuss and resolve
these curiosities. Another reason to divulge into this discussion was that it
is during adolescence, one starts identifying their gender and sexuality, which
can be beyond being ‘boy’ and ‘girl’, though it is never easy to experience and
accept that since the society we live in still emphasizes on gender binary.
Discussing and talking
about different gender and sexual identities at this point, can work in two
ways- firstly if there is an adolescent who identifies as homosexual or
transgender can really understand that this is as normal as being a boy or a
girl and their experience of identifying their sexuality would be easier, secondly
this would also build empathy towards other gender since they have been hearing
many things about them from society which are not necessarily true and can
develop fresh perspective about the same. Above all, I knew this discussion
will be intense and intriguing.
 |
| Painting the desires |
The session began with
mapping out “My desires” to explore what are the various desires they have for
themselves and with respect to their relationships. Through comfort and
discomfort activity, the participants were invited to answer the questions for
example- ‘Are you comfortable with a boy loving a girl?’, ‘Are you comfortable
with girl loving a girl?’ etc in form of dots on a sheet of paper. We did mind
mapping around what thoughts, feelings or questions comes to your mind when you
hear the word “Hizra”. It was very intense 20 minutes for me, as I heard and
wrote numerous questions and all those things people do in their ignorance to
hizras like why are they like this? Why don’t they get to live with their
family? How do their sex organs look like? Why are they different from us? They do black magic;
shopkeepers don’t take money from them, Does their blessings and curse works? and many more.
 |
| Who are 'Hizras?' |
I was surprised and taken aback that at
such a young age they had heard and seen so much about hizras and because these
assumptions are not sorted out here, they then form thick layer of conditioning,
creating a barrier against knowing them and ultimately results into
discriminating “Hizras”.
Through a chart paper having pictures and written
description, I explained various gender and sexual identities. I could see
confused faces, surprised faces, disgusted faces, smiling faces and scared
faces. I tried answering all possible questions that were coming to me, which actually
left me exhausted. With every workshop comes a new learning that just motivates
me further. Finally we closed the session after screening the movie “I am that”
which portrays the life and struggles of transgender.
“Before we talk about reflections, let’s
talk about future. I want to do a closure event that could showcase the
beautiful work that you people are doing. I am very happy with the workshop
processes and the way the entire intervention has come along. The kids are
engaging, they are able to understand the concepts and reflect on them. I can
see and feel the power of the space as I thought one or another participant
would drop out, contrary to this assumption the kids who were not participating
got attracted and started engaging which left me surprised. So let’s do this”,
shares Kamya Dargan, Founder, My Perch.
I liked this synergy of work! Before we
were leaving she shared her idea with the participants, “We have been part of
many workshops, but these workshops are different. Isn’t it, so many of us are
sharing our stories and learning new things so why not share our stories with
other people? Let’s celebrate this. What say?”
A loud ‘Yes’ brought heaps of excitement
and happiness in us!
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