Mahima Sharma Week 5

The authors Aniruddha Dutta and Raina Roy, in their article “Decolonizing Transgender in India Some Reflections”, enlighten how transgender as an identity originated in the eastern parts of India, but the attempt to make the term ‘transgender’ a universal term cannot cover the diversity in different parts of South Asia (regional and local) and it does not consider the identities based on caste or class. Nothing can weaken the hegemonic position of the term ‘transgender’ in social actions that reveals inequalities within the hierarchical political economy of social movements and the non profit sector. Transgender then just becomes the main theme, forming multiple levels within this hierarchy. Some communities force hijras to transit and change their way of living and sometimes their physical appearance and these things preserve the stigmatization of hijras and non-transsexual kothis as someone who is a degradation to the existence of humans. The assumptions and theories about the term transgender are usually ignored and this can propagate the deconstruction and democratization of LGBTIQ activism both inside and outside the “West.