Apparently this article is a little spicier than it seems, so I might have to do some counter-reading afterwards. Let’s see what I spot for myself.
Okay well straight up the the author is wrong because in their hypothetical “gender assigning machine” they have things assigned to “0” (female) if ambigious, which is not what happens? Male defaults. Not really sure what the point of this whole bit is tbh, other than to make plain such a machine (system) is silly. Oh, I bet it’s the mistake the author of the book makes? Maybe?
“Neither Man Nor Woman” is The Book on “third genders” in non-western cultures. By Serena Nanda. Hijra and all that.
Lol, its second sentence calls South Asian hijras “a religious community of men who dress and act like women”. lmao. Tipped your hand early on and the author reeinforces this throughout, it influences her ethnography.
Apparently she spends the whole book lurid detailing their lives as sex workers, their castrations, desire for “husbands” (her quotes?!?). Hmm. Apparently she also doesn’t actually do much detailed thinking about what “third sex” could mean, other than asserting that “two sexes” is western.
feels weird for me to be reading this piece, which is a critique of a book I have not read. I’m third hand from the source! And 4th+ hand from any accounts written by actual hijras!
Hijra trouble themselves a lot to be viewed as feminine/not men/similar to women/treated as women. Yet she affirms hijra are not women on the basis of them not living up to conventional Hindu feminitity standards. Ah I see, it’s about policing all the genders again. Always has been.
“Well you aren’t women, you can’t have babies” the author says (in my, uncomfortable, second hand paraphrase), “but you also clearly aren’t men! You must be some third thing.” I see. Third sex was constructed to deny hirja their womenhood. Author is very unempathetic/bioessentialist/bigoted :(
Ok there’s lots more criticism of the text in the book and so on, and I agree that it’s bad, but like I don’t want to note down all of it so uh, just assume we go on like this for a while.
Within Indian society, superstitions surrounding hijra are similar to/identical to the superstitions surrounding women who can’t have children (“baanjh”:“barren”).
So the author of this piece, the substack piece, is arguing that hijra are actually trans women. Which does seem to be what the hijra they describe ask for &c..
Nanda argues that “transsexuals” (her words) are medicalised, where are hijra are not. And, that this medicalisation is enforced by Western trans people to reinforce the gender dichotomy. Well, that’s just wrong.
But a) that’s just wrong, and b) hijra do express a desire for medical transitions but can’t access it because of their ostracism, marginalisation and impoverishment and so on.
Oh no. Nanda cites “The Transsexual Empire”. Jinkies.
After publishing two editions of this book, Nanda set about viewing the gender traditions in other places through the same lens, all in the aid of “what does it mean for”Western" views of gender". Ah, classic anthropology.
You know, this op-ed piece could be much shorter and better. Spend a few paragraphs summarising Nanda’s work, then critique it for a bit, then say something interesting about “third sex” ideas in general. EZ PZ. DON’T TAKE SO LONG. I don’t care that you’re very able to spot transphobia and misogony (how do you spell this) in books, it’s easy! I’m bored, and i’m very interested in this sort of stuff, usually.
Okay here we go, this paragraph sums up all the critique. I’m not going to write anything else until the author of this op-ed says something interesting by themselves! Third sex ideas are harmful because: “While there are some attempts to incorporate transmasculinities (what the book refers to as “female genders”), it remains fixated on transfeminized populations, as is the academy’s wont. There are broad similarities amongst the demographics it studies, including but not limited to being “born male” while expressing a desire for womanhood and femininity, associations with “male homosexuality” oriented around taking up the penetrable “feminized” role in sex, as well as marginalization, ostracism and stigmatization that results in precarity, being locked out of the formal economy, and high rates of survival sex work. We also, once again, see the text attempt bizarre contortions and invocations of cultural relativism, theology, and ‘reverence’ in order to cast self-evidently abjectified identities as ‘institutional genders’ in some way, despite the systemic, societal pressures to exclude and expel them."
Nanda refuses to consider the role of oppressive power structures in the way transgender people are made to live and how that conditions the presentation, discussion and perception of their genders.
Okay, so Nanda is anti-medical transition but pro-gender diversity. Non-medically-transitioning trans people (what she calls “transgender”) are good, expansive, challenging binaries &c.. Those “transsexuals” (her words) are bad, with their medical transitions. (laughs in non-binary). Bhatt is the author of the op-ed by the way. I’m going to have to edit these notes aren’t I…
Very often, the people she describes as “third-sexed” would really like to and sometimes are persuing a medical transition, despite this being made nigh impossible by the cultural barriers they face.
Oh i see, that 0 bit at the start is from the way all marginalised genders are treated like the OG marginalised gender (woman). Took a while to get there!
Whaaaa- the Indian official legal “third sex” was created citing “The Third Sex” (the transphobic and mysogenistic(??) book that invented the idea!!!). This denied hijra their chosen and pursued identities as women within Indian society.
The ethnography creates the ethnicity. (my phrase) in the same way that gender is created by its measurement/oppression/coercian to perform and so on in Butler. this might not be true.
heh, some of this smacks of the way people talk about drag. “is it a parody of feminitiy or is it art or is it terrible reinforcement of gender roles”.
Bhatt is continuing the trend of using hijra as a tool to make arguments in gender studies, rather than listening to what they have to say, describe them. The whole “criticisisg books about the hijra” bit could be a hell of a lot shorter. It’s still not over!! I hope they list lots of texts by hijra at the end.
All this Western third-sex academic work is playing at decolonisation, but ends up being cited by the Indian supreme court forming the basis for legislation that denies trans Indians self-id as women (or men, nobody talking about trans men as usual), and requiring institutional scrutiny and so on.
Oooo now we’re reading about what a hijra person herself has to say! …and deifying them as a uniquely eloquent figurehead. Okay, that didn’t last long. We’re back to the critiques and discussion of academic works the author doesn’t like.
Bhatt insists that hijra, and many other third-sexed people are “just” transwomen. And like, yeah, but also no, imo. Firstly, “third-sexed” people (like Two Spirit people) exist who espouse male/non-binary alligned gender identities.
Bhatt makes (correct) argument that pre-colonial societies were not (all) egalitarian and gender-enlightened until the West showed up and fucked that all up (okay, but sometimes that did literally happen lol). “Only being able to exist as an ascetic or by begging for alms at ceremonies is not reverence or a gender role, but marginalisation.”
Okay yes, we want the liberation of tomorrow and not a return to the “reverence” of the past, so stop mythologising it.
good point: every sex you make that is not the First Sex (male) does not do anything to disrupt the patriarchy, just gives more names to those oppressed beneath it. the basis is hierarchy not dichotomy. third-sexing can be a part of establishing and maintaining this hierarchy.
“third sex” often becomes a dumping ground for society’s sexual/gender outcasts/laws. c/o Feinberg’s argument that discrimination against gay people is in fact discrimination against their peformance of their gender, in common with the discrimination against trans people.
Add in bioessentialism and you get the fact that older women (ie those who can’t gestate) are more likely than older men to live in poverty and die alone in a care home.
okay, despite her insistence, Bhatt does seem to be trying to collapse all forms of gendered oppression into third-sexing. or rather, not-first-sexing… or, using the lowest available number, second-sexing oh shit it’s the ghost of simone de bouvouir with the steel chair!!
hmm, gotta say, this bit is quite persuasive. gotta watch out.
these third-sexers make a distinction between transsexuals (ie, those who persue a medical transition) and transgender people (those who don’t). the gender-non-comfortiy of the latter is held up as a virtue over the “dangerous assimilitation” of the former. apparently cass does this, i’m not surprised. this is bad for obvious reasons.
Bhatt very funnily despises academic literature and shit… whilst writing an academic essay that cites nothing but it!!!! I guess she’s allowed to do that if she wants, not evenybody has to write anarchist style from-the-ground critiques. And the point of this essay is to call bullshit on the orientalist transmisia of The Third Sex and similar. Yeah, true.
Ends with a passionate rallying cry.
my takeaways
- ooh, i should read “whipping girl” (serano)
- this author is very anti-anthropology. there’s a bias there.
- where are the trans men????? did you forget about them.
- this was soooooooooooooo long and boring!!
- if third-sexed people are “just” transwomen, where are the trans men, where are the non-binary people.
- agree that third-sex is a construct imposed by academics to deny these people the gender they actually identify as.
- Bhatt seems really eager to assume all present and historical third-sexed people into the category of transwoman.
- you know, you can sort all this annoying argument-having just by asking for gender liberation for all and to whatever extent. like. don’t bother having arguments. just go for the throat you know? this is maybe my anarchism showing.
- more citations please! more citations of non-academic works! less just quoting a passage and then pointing out the transmisia/mysogeny?
- now i know to be wary when i hear people talking about hijra as a recognised “third gender” lol.
- wish this was more grounded in people’s actual experiences rather than copious quotes from books that are then torn apart. like, critique isn’t actually very useful unless you’re hoping to win an argument yourself. I’d much rather have journalism, y’know?
Ah okay. Bhatt also has a review of Stone Butch Blues and in it she comes across as quite unconsidered and also a bit transmisandrist. Oops.
ALSO I think they're weirdly fixated on medical transitions (makes sense to be when critiqueing the reactionary obsession with it), and the way they maintain the distinction between transgender and transsexual is weird. They clearly identify as the latter, and discuss wholly from that perspective, and it doesn't feel particularly inclusive, idk. Mostly my intuition. Don't want to read their other stuff and find out! I feel like they focussed on the material aspects of accessing a medical transition, which is fair enough, but did not discuss any other material aspects, really.