Transgenders in India are not seen as a behavior, but they are seen as a cult. There have been families of transgenders who have been existing in our culture for centuries now. My own dynasty is 650 years old, but I know of transgender families that are even 800 years old. So they have been in existence much before even the Muslims or the Christians have influenced our country. And there is mention about transgenders in our religious texts, in our Hindu mythology. So I think it is more to do with our culture than any other thing.”
— India’s Prince Manvendra, the world’s only out royal, discussing the recent Supreme Court ruling that officially recognizes transgender people as “third gender,” in an interview with Frontiers magazine
Billy Budd
Do you know that in India, it is customary for two friends to walk on the streets holding hands? I mean, STRAIGHT friends holding hands.
carey579
^ Also Queerty and other gay organisations should feature this fact that – the biggest directors in Bollywood (which is the biggest film industry in the world and Indians are obsessed with it) – Karan Johar & Sanjay Leela Bhansali are closeted gays!
Not even closeted – it’s like an open secret – everyone in Bollywood knows Karan Johar is gay and he doesn’t deny it and keeps making jokes about himself/his sexuality – watch Koffee with Karan.
quichotteurbain
@Billy Budd:
It’s normal for straight platonic friends to hold hands in most of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia as well, even in the most homophobic locales.
It’s not so much a statement of acceptance but is rather a result of the fact that homosexuality in the open sense we are accustomed to is so avoided/shunned/never talked about that it allows for a type of male-male female-female interaction that we would consider in the West to be rather sexual/intimate. Sharing beds, holding hands, etc. are viewed as completely platonic as homosexuality is so taboo and hence practically “unimaginable” to them.
This usually goes hand-in-hand with a considerable segregation of the sexes, so on the flip side innocuous male-female interactions such as merely being together in public or being in the same room alone would be seen as very scandalous to them.
Interestingly in parts of the Middle East, it would be acceptable for two local men to hold hands but frowned upon for two foreign men to do the same, due to a growing awareness of its differing connotations in other parts of the world.
DickieJohnson
Prince, as in “Raja”??? Nice outfit, Highness! Man, I would LOVE to get all decked-out like that, as often as possible. But, I wonder, does he feed the poor?
Billy Budd
He must have access to the prettiest boys in the kingdom.
hex0
The Indian Supreme court has recently ruled in favour of transgender people but against homosexuals. It seems in conservative countries they’d rather gays become transsexuals as a form of “cure” for gay people.
kpj558
Hijdras and Transgender individuals are NOT synonymous. Hijras are their own distinct community with no Western equivalent. The only similarity between these two communities is that their members exist in the grey space between the gender binary. Gender dysphoria (feeling you were assigned the wrong gender at birth) is a defining characteristic of the Western trans-movement. However, this is not a necessarily the case for Hijras. Furthermore, there are no F-2-M Hijras. It would be a disservice to both communities to continue to conflate them.
Kangol
That Indian prince is kind of scrumptious.
M___Townsend
Small point: The Prince has indicated he knows of Hijra families (‘transgender families’) that are at least 800 years old, not the broader claim that Hijras have been around starting 800 years ago. Socio-anthropological evidence suggests transgenders have been known for at least millennia.
Food for thought: The Prince seems to assert that it is mythology and Indian culture that produce Hijras. Can the type of culture ‘induce’ traits in an individual? While cultures name categories denoting behavioral differences from a majority culture (“fags”, “perverts”, “degenerates” and the like), I doubt they do much to induce homosexuality and transgenderism.