Explained: A brief history of India’s transgender community

While the Starbucks ad was always bound to rile up some people, the claim that it is “foreign propaganda” is interesting. Throughout Indian history, transgender individuals have been portrayed in various ways — through both positive and negative lenses.

We briefly trace the history of the transgender community in India.

Depiction of trans people in Hindu mythology

M Michelraj, a PhD research scholar in Public Administration, tracing the historical evolution of transgender community in India, shares that the concept of tritiyaprakriti (third-nature) or napumsaka has been integral to Hindu mythology, Vedic and Puranic literature, epics and folktales. The term napumsaka here indicates the absence of the ability to procreate, thus, distinguishing them from both masculine and feminine markers.

The article highlights that the transgender community comprised of hijras, eunuchs, Kothis, Aravanis, Jogappas, Shiv-Shakthis etc.

According to researchers Shiva Prakash Srinivasan and Sruti Chandrasekaran, the female avatar of Vishnu — Mohini, who appears in the Mahabharata, counts as the first reference to trans people in the Hindu mythology. Mohini also appears in Vishnu purana as well as the Lingapurana, where Shankara-Narayanan’s origins (Hariharan) is attributed to the merging of Shiva and Mohini (Vishnu).

As cited in The New York Times, the trans persons (referred to as hijras in the Ramayana) were the ones who waited in the woods for 14 years after Lord Rama asked “men and women” to “wipe their tears and go away,” after being exiled, because they did not fall within the gender-binary.

The epic Mahabharata carries two main references to trans persons — one, Aravan (translated from the Tamil as the son of a snake), and two, Shikhandi. Srinivasan and Chandrasekaran highlight that for Aravan, who was offered to be killed for Goddess Kali to ensure the victory of Pandavas in the war, the condition was that he should spend the last night as a married man. As women refused to be married to Aravan, Lord Krishna is believed to have taken the form of Mohini and marry him.

Moreover, Princess Amba had sworn to take revenge from Bhishma after he abducted and rejected her in marriage. According to the article, Transsexualism in Hindu Mythology, Amba, reborn as Shikhandini, changed her sex to become Shikhandi. As Bhishma recognized Shikhandi as Shikhandini during the Kurukshetra war, and refused to fight a “woman,” he lowered his weapons as Shikhandi appeared in Arjuna’s chariot, assisting Arjuna kill Bhishma with his arrows. Shikhandi’s character, thus, became crucial in the victory of the Pandavas.

Trans people during the Mughal era

Michelraj, in his paper, mentions that hijras served as political advisors, administrators and guardians of the harems, during the Mughal-era. They also served in the royal courts during the Mughal rule in India, according to the paper, and wielded influence in important matters of the state.

For instance, Itimad Khan was a eunuch-officer in Akbar’s court with the charge of administering the finances of the state. According to historian Shadab Bano’s article ‘Eunuchs in Mughal households and court’, Khan became a sovereign confidant, with not just great influence, but also a tremendous wealth.

The wealth and stature of trans people was noted, often with surprise, by European travellers to Mughal India.

“They can get whatever they desire — fine horses to ride, servants to attend them outside, and female slaves inside the house, clothes as fine and smart as those of their master himself,” Dutch merchant Francisco Pelsaert noted during his visit to the Mughal court in the seventeenth century.

The British and the stigmatisation of trans persons

During British rule, hijras continued to receive protections and benefits from a few Indian states, including provision of land, food, and money. But the British themselves brought with them European attitudes towards transness.

According to an article by The New York Times, the third gender enjoyed a certain degree of respect in the country, under traditional Hindu culture. However, besides other factors, British rule in India has greatly influenced the way people perceive the transgender community today.

What accompanied colonisation in the mid-19th century was a “strict sense of judgment to sexual mores,” which criminalised “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” According to Michelraj, criminalisation of their existence meant denying them civil rights.

Over time, the discrimination against transgernder people by the state percolated into the society, influencing attitudes and eventually, turning the trans community into a shell of its former self.

Today, the precarity and vulnerability of trans people in India is in part a product of a social and ideological change that occured during British rule.

Contemporary struggles (and victories)

In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court, in April 2014, legally recognized transgenders or eunuchs as ‘the third gender,’ directing the Centre as well as the states to treat them as socially and educationally backward classes and extend reservations in admission in educational institutions and for public appointments. The historic move came to be referred to as the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment.

Within the judgment, the apex court directed governments to take steps to remove problems faced by them such as fear, shame, social pressure, depression, and social stigma. The court affirmed the constitutional rights of transgender persons under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.

Further, it was only in 2018 that the Supreme Court widened the ambit of individual autonomy and decisional privacy by decriminalising homosexuality. Reading down the provisions of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised same-sex relationships, the top court held that the law violated the fundamental rights of citizens. The court noted that the said Section was used as a weapon to harass the members of the LGBTQ community, resulting in discrimination.

Although the Bill to ensure horizontal reservation for transgender persons and people with intersex variations was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2014, the amendments made to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in December 2019, led provisions, including that of horizontal reservation, to be scrapped. Grace Banu, the founder of The Trans Rights Now Collective, filed an application demanding horizontal reservations from the Tamil Nadu government, the SC refused to entertain the same.

It was in 2021 that Karnataka emerged as the first and only state to extend one per cent reservation for trans persons in any service or post in all categories of employment to be filled through the direct recruitment process in the state. The amendment to Rule 9 of the Karnataka Civil Services (General Recruitment) Rules, 1977, also directed recruiting authorities to provide a separate column to allow applicants to identify as ‘others’, apart from male or female.

According to Sudipta Das, a Dalit-queer feminist writer working with The YP Foundation, horizontal reservations “is an intersectional approach that is provided for within each vertical reservation category.” In a column, Das explains, that within the queer community,  “People coming from certain socio-economic locations often have easier access to healthcare, educational and career opportunities, and forms of capital, which might not be the case for Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi (DBA) trans people.”