‘No Outlaws in the Gender Galaxy’ (Zubaan, 2015) documents the social, economic, spatial, physical and emotional experiences of being persons assigned gender female at birth (PAGFB). The book is the result of detailed interviews with 50 PAGFB in India conducted over a year starting 2009 by LABIA – A Queer Feminist LBT Collective, based in Mumbai. The research was carried out by a team of 11 members. Chayanika Shah, Raj Merchant, Shals Mahajan and Smriti Nevatia led the detailed analysis and writing over the next five years. The work comes out at a time when the legal battle for decriminalisation of non-conforming sexual expressions is still on in the Indian courts. Sudheesh conversed with the authors over email:

 

The book states the background of the authors, including caste, class privileges, upfront in the initial pages. You have also worked closely with lesbian, bisexual and trans* persons for years. Yet, were there situations during the interviews when these privileges became constraints?

 

 

As you rightly say, we were and are very conscious of our privileges, both as individuals and as a collective which has been active for a long time, all through the process. We do recall situations where this worked in favour of the process, but cannot think of specific instances where it might have been a constraint.

Looking back, it seems that our collective commitment to being mindful of all privileges at every stage, which is part of the politics and ethics with which we attempt to do our work as a queer feminist collective, has only been enabling. This politics has emerged from our locations, but is definitely not bound by them. We have learned from, allied with, been part of other movements, and somewhere all that has allowed us to sharpen our understanding of the privileges, as well as the marginalisations.

So while our politics is that of “Nothing about us, without us”, it is also about valuing alliances and solidarities, and mutual learning. And for us this leads to a transformative politics.

 

 

You make the intriguing observation that the interviewees’ reporting of gender identity as ‘confused’ or ‘uncertain’ may refer to gaps in language rather than their confusion (page 27). The book carefully uses ze, hir etc. to refer to the interviewee’s own notion of gender. How problematic is this gap in the case of Indian languages?

 

We do not consider this to be a gap in Indian languages per se, as much as an issue with the binary basis of all languages, as well as with the lack of access even to existing terminology, and the absence of wider conversations about the lived realities of gender non-conforming persons. Access to new terminologyas it evolves is often dependent on the privilege of being English-speaking – because much of the literature is in English, and many of the terms in use are borrowed from the English language. Access also suggests that the individual has community and support spaces where some discussion may be present – spaces not easily found, as our study suggests.

Some Indian languages are strictly binary-gendered (gendering even inanimate objects, as in French). The challenge then is: how to speak of multiple genders? Solutions may be found in using verbs creatively and tweaking established rules of grammar. Figuring out existing usage is also important, a process we too attempted when we asked our respondents for words in their mother tongues they may have heard that referred to people with unconventional gender expressions, even if these were used in a derogatory manner. This attempt was part of the larger project of compiling, creating, and possibly reclaiming language that might help to fill some of the gaps.

 

The interviews touch upon difficult topics such as non-monogamy, menstruation, masturbation, violence within relationships and mental health issues. How does queerness emerge as both radical (say, in its challenging of norms) as well as deeply conventional (say, in the case of violence within relationships)?

 

Many daily acts of living a life on one’s own terms, especially when against the grain of socio-cultural norms, can be read as radical. Similarly, when gender and sexuality non-conforming people seem to live lives in identifiable patterns, it is also easy to read heteronormativity into them. We believe that both the radical and conventional need to be read at a slant.

Many of our respondents left their homes, and along with it they left whatever social security homes provided. This is a radical act, not just in the absence of other support, but given the grave loss of both emotional and social capital such leaving entails. Yet they did not see this as a radical act, but as one of survival. The most radical acts, we feel, are the acts of being true to yourself in the face of a reality that does not understand you.

Similarly when there are no readymade structural templates, such as marriage for your non-normative relationships, and precisely because you are marginalised for your selfhood and desire, the possibilities of conversations around self, identity, desire and relationships open out in multiple ways.   In this re-imagining and re-shaping, tropes of the normative may often be experimented with or followed, but even then it is important to read how expected hierarchies might actually shift and how some seemingly normative acts are rooted in lived realities we have not comprehended. For example, a man-identified PAGFB might not like to cook, because his whole childhood might have been a struggle against being forcibly made a “good girl” and do the things that “girls” are supposed to do. Later in life, when his masculinity is accepted and not under question, this same man might find the space to enjoy doing those very things that were enforced and therefore abhorrent to him earlier.

 

 

The book clearly brings out that intersections of caste, class, education, location, religion etc. with gender non-conformity affect the choices that are available to PAGFB. What are the ways of bringing these insights into activism?

 

 

What this clearly points to is that campaigns and movements have to be pitched from the location of the most marginalised, and not from the most privileged in a particular set. Thus the campaigns of the queer movement cannot be from the position of those for whom sexuality is their only axis of marginalisation and who are otherwise privileged by their gender, caste, class and suchlike. It is important, then, that campaigns around gender and sexuality reflect the realities of those who are from rural areas, are Dalit, and who do not have access to private spaces or public institutions.

Also, we cannot but recognise that a transman, for example, is not always only a transman. He could also be Dalit and from an urban working class background and his experience of each of these locations is intricately altered by each axis of marginalisation. Hence, transformation can happen only when movements connect to multiple social exclusions and cultural marginalisations.

 

 

Family, schools, public spaces, workspaces, toilets and even romantic relationships constantly impose gender expectations as evident in the narratives in the book. Attempts to ‘queer’ spaces/institutions often end up being fragmented efforts to merely include queer persons in the existing spaces/institutions. Is it possible at all to envision queering as a radical, inside-out transformation of the society?

 

 

Inclusion in existing spaces and services is important to consider. To illustrate, one wouldn’t want to get rid of gender-segregated schools if parents refuse to send their female children to co-educational institutes. A transformative politics of gender could be envisioned as the deregulation of gender, rather than its negation. For example, if rules around school uniforms were relaxed, gender boundaries would be more porous.

 

Similarly, public spaces and institutions are shaped by norms of gender, class, caste and ability. If there is to be a radical queering, such institutions will have to be designed for multiply marginalised persons, and not just by including their concerns and needs. All spaces are inaccessible or hostile in varying degrees for anyone who doesn’t fit snugly into heteropatriarchy. Transformative politics would not mean we set up a binary of queer and non-queer, but that we do set up spaces free from reductive binaries and rigid categories.

 

 

An important insight that the work gives is what you call ‘circle of deprivation’ –the compounding of violence inflicted by family, school and other social institutions by economic and social displacement when PAGFB are forced to leave home. What are some of the evidences from the interviews that policymakers can pick up to address the circle of deprivation?

 

Our respondents’ stories are testament to their need to be true to themselves, to live their gender despite multiple vulnerabilities, with all the violence, abuse and discrimination that begin right at home and, for many, in school. The education system  also inculcates the rigid binary values of ‘good girl’ and ‘good boy’ that play such a pivotal role in putting pressure on gender non-conforming students, making it difficult for them  to thrive or remain within the educational system. Several respondents had to run away from home and drop out of school – which meant employment was available mainly in the informal sector. The subsistence wages, lack of job security, and pervasive heteronormative environment render livelihood options limited and precarious. People narrated instances of losing or quitting jobs due to violence around their appearance, their relationships, or even having to take a day’s leave to take care of an ill partner.

 

That they do not have unhindered and safe access to public spaces is evident from experiences of gender-segregated spaces like bathrooms and women’s reserved compartments, where non-normative PAGFB are verbally and physically assaulted. For many, this means deciding not to access such public services, or putting themselves at risk every time. There is also enough evidence that law enforcement agencies police non-normative behaviour and deny assistance rather than uphold rights – as when gender non-conforming PAGFB face legal action on eloping with a partner.

 

In the absence of skill-creation programmes, a legislated minimum wage, social safety nets, strong anti-discrimination laws, the interviews clearly show that multiply marginalised PAGFB face systemic structural violence at various levels. While policymakers must pay heed to providing judicial safeguards, they must also provide affirmative and enabling environments right from primary to higher education to hiring  practices to provisions in bathrooms and public transport, keeping in mind not just the axis of gender but also of class, caste and ability.

 

Thanks to the inaccessible language and ivory-tower arguments of queer theory, most queer persons in the country would not know such a thing exists. In the book, you have followed Judith/Jack Halberstam’s understanding of theory –‘goal-oriented in a practical and activist way and designed to inform political practice rather than formulate abstract thoughts for the sake of some neutral philosophical object’. What message do you have for us young researchers working on gender/queer studies?

 

The reason we veer towards this kind of theory-making could be because we are primarily activists and politically engaged queer subjects. And perhaps, in that sense, part of the reason we succeeded was that we were not “purely academic” researchers 😉

We believe that all knowledge-making is a political act and researchers in particular need to recognise this. Hence seeking honest, personal answers to questions like “Why do we ask this question?” and “Why do we choose this method to find answers?”, and having the courage to change the question and the paths when necessary – could be a starting point.

Going further, while language is necessary for theory-building, an over-emphasis on it can ruin the experience and impetus of a study. Using and creating language to articulate nuance without losing sight of the lives one is trying to talk about is the balance that we all strive for, and neither should be sacrificed in deference to the other.

Finally, since you ask, a message for young researchers: The “other” may seem exotic and in need of study and solutions, but most nuanced and honest understandings come from that which is familiar. Also, one of the lessons that we have learnt from the margins is that questioning the centres and normative structures is critical. So maybe we need to begin our research careers with milieus and questions that are familiar to us.

 

What are your next steps? What are the main challenges LABIA is facing in their work?

 

We in LABIA not only situate ourselves in women’s movements, but have always talked and will continue to talk to the women’s movements – by taking, say, the understanding, knowledge and language that the book represents into those interactions and engagements. Drawing upon our research study and book, we will underscore the crucial intersections of caste, gender, and sexuality; and the need for trans* inclusiveness by using, among other things, this pithy observation by a LABIA member– “transmen are men but they must be included; transwomen are women, so they must be included.”

LABIA turned 20 in 2015, an occasion that the collective marked with two days of “Feminist Queer” conversations around a host of concerns, including gender, with other queer collectives and individuals invited from across the country. By “feminist queer” we are really speaking of bringing feminism into queer spaces – which has always been a challenge.

The other major aspect of our future work is to be able to influence policy. On this front, we have recently sent our responses and detailed suggestions to the draft of the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill 2015.

Not least, we have been learning, through the study that informs the book, many things about bodies, and about redefining the “natural” and the “normal”; we are keen to take these discussions forward with others similarly engaged, such as persons with disabilities.