Hijra
In south Asian countries including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the Hijra are people who were assigned male at birth and who have a feminine gender expression. This is a very ancient tradition of a nonbinary gender role (often called "third gender"). The Hijra in India alone may number as many as 2,000,000.[1]
Legal Recognition
In some countries today, Hijra are legally recognized as a gender other than female or male.
- India, November 2009 [2] Owing to the Hijra, India allows passports to use the gender marker "T", meaning transgender or third gender,[3] as well as "E" (eunuch).[4] However, this distinction doesn't grant them all civil rights (for example, in order to vote, one needs to identify as either male or female).
- Pakistan, December 2009 [5]
- Bangladesh, November 2013 [6] In 2011, Bangladesh started to allow passports to show a gender called "other", owing to the Hijra.[7][8]
Notable hijras
Please expand this section.
In fiction
- River of the Gods and Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald. A novel set in futuristic India in year 2050, with interesting subplots about hijra.
See also
- Gender-variant identities worldwide
- Gallae
- Eunuch
- Two-Spirit
- Glossary of Hindi gender and sex terminology
- Recognition
References
- ↑ Reddy, Gayatri, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India, 310 pp., University of Chicago Press, 2005 ISBN 0-226-70755-5 (see p. 8)
- ↑ "India's third gender gets own identity in voter rolls", Harmeet Shah Singh, CNN.com, Nov. 2009
- ↑ Mitch Kellaway. "Trans Indian's Predicament at Border Shows the U.S. Lags Behind." May 9, 2015. Advocate. http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/05/09/trans-indian-womans-predicament-border-shows-us-lags-behind
- ↑ Tristin Hopper, "Genderless passports ‘under review’ in Canada." May 8, 2012. National Post. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/genderless-passports-under-review-in-canada
- ↑ "Pakistan Recognizes Third Gender", Ria Misra, Politics Daily, Dec. 2009
- ↑ "Hijras now a separate gender", Mohosinul Karim, Dhaka Tribune, Nov. 2013
- ↑ Macarow, Aron (9 February 2015). "These Eleven Countries are Way Ahead of the US on Trans Issues". ATTN:. Retrieved 1 October 2020.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
- ↑ Tristin Hopper, "Genderless passports ‘under review’ in Canada." May 8, 2012. National Post. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/genderless-passports-under-review-in-canada