The following is a comment on the piece written by Aniruddha
Dutta and Raina Roy titled ‘Decolonizing transgender in India: Some Reflections’
In their essay, Aniruddha Dutta and Raina Roy interrogate
the transgender identity in the Indian context and argue that the idea of
seeing South Asian discourses of Gender and sexual identity as merely local
expressions of transgender identity misses out on the complexities represented
by such discourses. The personal experiences of the authors play a central role
in the arguments they make. While the authors don’t advocate the complete
annihilation of the notion of ‘transgender’ as an open ended umbrella term but
critique the structural constraints under which the term functions. Because under
the open ended interpretation, a tradition of post-colonial discourse is
bolstered which eventually works towards the detriment of these complex
identities examples of which are witnessed in south Asia. According to the
authors, what is primarily at fault for this kind of perpetuation is a
centralized structure of social movements through activism, funding, NGOs and
academics which pose hurdles in the emergence of counter-hegemonic movements
which can work towards bringing a greater change in terms of recognition and
how they are perceived. Thus, it becomes important to critiquw the over-arching
structure which then allows a greater democratization of LGBTQIA movements
outside the ‘west’.
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