UnGender stall, 200+ students and many stirring conversations

“The problem with Gender is that it prescribes How we should be? Rather than recognizing How we are?”

This constant struggle of being compelled to adhere to Gender norms is not just problematic in terms of limiting one’s caliber and capabilities by boxing them into a particular identity but also it brings ignorance which forbids anyone to explore the limitless sky!

I believe it’s important to shed the clouds of ignorance so that the limitless sky is at least visible and with this thought we set up “UnGender” stall at PGDAV College during their annual fest. Interestingly ours was the only social enterprise that was setting up a stall, rest were either food stall or gaming stall, I was wondering how are we going to engage these students into discussion who were in festive mood! Nevertheless we were all set with our stall, we had designed our stall in a way that the participants would engage in quiz and then would enter inside the stall for the Gender model followed by discussion on important issues which are very alive in today’s scenario ranging with Gender based violence to Section- 377.

The first 2 charts that had quiz was very interesting and at the same time very intimidating. The first chart has two pictures (one where two men were kissing and second where two men were sitting together), the facilitator invites the participants to see the chart carefully and share who appear to be gay couple according to them? Not surprisingly most of the participants ticked on the picture that had two men kissing. This was followed by the chart which had 3 pictures- two men sitting, two women sitting and in third a man and women sitting on the beach – the facilitator invites the participant to see the pictures and share “who according to them is a heterosexual couple?” 

After the Quiz, the participant is invited inside the stall where another facilitator initiates the discussion on Traditional Gender Model which is based on how society sees or dictates Gender, Gender roles, identity and sexual orientation based on the binaries, which is followed by Authentic Gender Model. The later gender model is more complex; less talked about and explores permutation and combinations of gender and sexual identities. The last part of the stall is more about conversations, discussions and exploring the deep rooted stereotypes. Here, we place five cards which has a statement for example- Rape is not just about sex etc, so the facilitator invites the participant to choose a card and share what they feel or believe about it. 

I was facilitating the part “What is Authentic Gender Model?” which starts critiquing the Traditional Gender Model right from the beginning – It says that there are three kinds of sex- Male, Female and Intersex, because we never talk about intersex. Interestingly most of the participants were using the term Gender instead of sex, I could clearly make out – one the discomfort with the term ‘sex’ and secondly they assumed that ‘sex’ and “Gender” are synonymous to each other and thirdly most of them believed that LGBT community has come into existence only in recent times. All these points reflected on the dire need of what we are doing at “UnGender”.   

I was kind of sandwiched between two very powerful aspects of the stall, on one hand there was Pratibha who was facilitating “Traditional Gender Model” where in she was not only discussing about how Gender roles, identity and sexual orientation are seen and followed but through her personal sharing she was bringing in a discourse on masculinity and femininity- the things that are hardly talked about but is actually lived without understanding or questioning. Few of her sharing was particularly so intimidating that I had to actually pause and think about it. Importantly she was dealing with the each group by sensing in their backdrop, the things that could particularly hit their consciousness for example- She said that her brothers used to take her and other sisters to have date with other guys. The group of the guys looked at her in utter disbelief, the boys respond that they can do that too but their family won’t agree and above that how can we know the character of the boys? To this, pat comes the answer, “Who would guarantee your gal’s character? And the change begins from you! I am able to do many things because my brothers realized that they have a upper hand in power, so they used their power to help me step out of the home, so all of you also has to use your power to make your family, your society progressive rather than waiting for miracle to happen”.

“You can say this because you come from an elite family”

“Yes, you can say so, because yes I come from the elite family where girls are killed in the womb, where if the father comes to know that second child could be girl, wife is threatened. But this didn’t let me stop because I knew I was more than that”, says Pratibha.

And on another hand I had Mona facilitating the conversations around various sensitive issues which included Gender based violence, power dynamics, Homosexuality and Section-377. Her powerful dialogue on “rape is not just about sex” with a middle age man instigated me to jump into the conversation but I had to hold on to it. It was appalling to hear that a single man can’t do rape, woman is equally involved in a way to justify rape as consensual sex!! Also a lot of boys did agree that rape is way more than sex it is an epitome of power exerted on the women to take revenge, to humiliate, to oppress them.

Equally important was to explain Authentic Gender Model which talks about Gender and Sexuality beyond the borders of binaries. There was lot of words in the chart that brought curiosities ‘Intersex’ ‘Androgynous’ ‘Unique’; the wide range covering the sexual orientation raised many eyebrows- Questions like “A man is attracted to both man and woman then he is bisexual, than what is Pansexual?” “How can someone be Asexual?” “Transgender is same as eunuch?”  “What is the sexual organ of Transgender?” “If someone knows that their child is intersex, then why don’t they abort it?”

This last question just pained me- “What do you mean by saying that intersex child should be aborted?” The child is perfectly fine and healthy, just because at some point of time, his/her sexual identity would be questioned by social norms, they won’t be allowed to see this beautiful world! Anyways who has given the society this authority to question someone’s sexual or for that matter any identity. I was taken aback by her ignorance but at the same time I realized that it’s not only her but god knows how many people think on the same lines and that’s how marginalization happens. 

Initially while setting up the stall, we were all in dilemma as to how the UnGender stall would function, however the out pour of students in small and big groups, all girl groups to all boys groups and to mixed groups, intriguing questions to churning conversations made our day.