Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Word of the Gay: "Hijra"

In India a "Hijra" is regarded as a member of the third sex, not male or female. Hijra are usually trans-women or intersex individuals. Today they face discrimination in light of western influence on attitudes in the region, however, traditionally gender variant people were accepted and regarded as special in the society.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Human Rights Defence has now announced the results our essay competition. At third place Shoma A. Chatterji’s “Eunuchs of India - Deprived of Human Rights” is placed. Here is a snippet from its introduction...

"The International Human Rights Day comes and goes every year. Human Rights activists talk of torture of under trials in police custody. They talk about human beings being subjected to medical experimentation without their conscious knowledge. They discuss socially relevant subjects like violence against women, child abuse, trafficking or exploitation of child labour in TW countries. But the lot of the community of eunuchs is largely ignored even by their own. It is also true that at every stage of their existence, their rights to live and work like normal human beings are violated with impunity."

If you like to read more, you will find it on our site: www.humanrightsdefence.org

Yours sincerely,

Tomas Eric Nordlander
HumanRightsDefence

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