Discussion, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobia (Jeevanandhan Rajendran)

Discussion, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobia

Director: Jeevanandhan Rajendran

Duration: 00:32:21; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 349.145; Saturation: 0.081; Lightness: 0.401; Volume: 0.156; Cuts per Minute: 3.091; Words per Minute: 159.289

People’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.

M: We just heard some successful lifetime stories of these people. What really is missing in the society for the last years? To accept these or discuss their preferences ;

Dr Vijay: This is the fundamental problem with this whole homophobic phenomenon. Why. It seems bizarre that we actually have to have a meeting like this to discuss gayness and transwomen and transgenders, lifestyle issues etc. They are just like everybody else. It is just that they have a different sexual orientation so why are we so reluctant as a society to accept it. I think the answers are fairly complex. Number one is this whole thing about normal sea versus abnormal sea. Is this normal, is this what we were created for? You shouldn't be man and women rather than man and man and women and women. Now here the bottom line is it is not about whether it is, what should be the right way for procreation? The issue is this is something that they have inherently within them. This is who they are. You can't therefore say that no you have to be either a man or a woman or men and women are the only ones who can procreate with each other. In a country like ours we are sexually notoriously depressed. Even the so called male, female sexuality we have hardly any comfort in discussing sexuality, our own sexuality with the children. I think Shrevath said it beautifully when he said that even reproductive system in school, the teachers were unwilling to discuss it with the students. So that is the level of repression that we operate at. So I think that we find it difficult to accept anything which seems to be not part of our own sense or self or our own lifestyle. Even take a phenomenon like oral sex, there are people who feel that oral sex is terrible. It is a crime. It is against because there is no procreational possibility there. So it is still a question of looking at our own orientation towards sex and sexuality and only then getting into this whole gender phenomenon which is another big can of worms.

Dr Reddy: Dr Vijay very clearly said that who decides what is normal, what is not normal? To answer your question in simple terms, what is missing in society? We miss the knowledge, we miss the comfort with the knowledge we have. If we can fix that gap then I don't think there will be much any problem.
People's Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.
action plus
begging
bisexual
bus conductors
children
class
counselors
discrimination
employment
female to male
harassment
hierarchy
homophobia
homosexuals
lesbians
male to female
parents
people's panchayats on resisting stigma and homophobia
prostitution
sex education
transgender
trucking
Chennai, India

R1: Yeah I have a question to Dr Narayan Reddy? I know when we sit for our counseling, there are parents who bring children for example let us say about a few days ago we had a little boy thirteen years old. He was caught having sex from a very rich family. Caught having sex with the security guy next door. So the mother was literally on here knees crying, first thing was she wanted a HIV test, luckily for the child was negative and said please make him normal and I really don't know how to make people normal because I think everybody was normal but she wouldn't take my answer. So I had to refer them to Dr Narayan Reddy. So let us see what he does with them?

Dr Narayan Reddy: Good question madam which I just wrote the topic, what is normal and what is abnormal? Very scientifically speaking normality can be judged from three dimensions. The first one is phylogenetic or biomedical, through medical it is normal or not. The second is statistical normality. If you take a survey, about 100,60 are behaving this way then that becomes normal. Today in society what is happening. Heterosexual people are more in number in society so that is normal. Which percentage is more it is normal. If from 100 % so many are there, that is normal. The third is socio cultural normality. Social cultural normality and daily habits, this should be normal they will say. One more thing is there which is last, the legal normality, this is according to the state the legality will change. Now when you see this 3 and 4 will not go along with each other. There will be hardly any agreement between these four normality's. The questions is when a parent comes to a counselor with a problem the question is why is she distressed that the child is abnormal. First we have to find out from that angle and whatever counseling we are going to give is to address that issue at that moment. Now I take the liberty of answering something else now here with your permission even though this is not the question proposed by professor Sunithi. Now Vijay clearly said that the society is such loggerheads, not an issue. One there is discrimination by the word homophobia itself. Now I want to raise two issues to the public and to the wonderful people sitting here. Why wonderful because the first time I am coming across somebody who issued a positive attitude towards their own gender orientation or gender identity whatever it is. Normally people have a victim mentality and that is not conducive for anything else.

Now leave alone homosexuality or transgenderism or transwomanism. Till recently I was being discriminated against. In a medical conference I will not be called to give a lecture because what is sex, heart is more important, eye is more important. I can give you an example in spite of all my standing in international level, when it comes to India, thrice some of the social service clubs, something like your lions lottery cremations. I was nominated for the sake of honor award and ultimately the organizer last minute rang me up and said Doctor Reddy unfortunately your subject is like that so we cannot officially give you this award. But would you like and come to introduce your friend who is your own classmate. All that happened that gentleman must have cardiology; respect, he must be a consultant. Anyway it gives me pleasure to introduce my own friend and to receive that award. The point is simple, now why does discrimination come? Simple basically the fear of the unknown. I do not know why X is behaving that way. I am scared, I am scared that not only about him, about my own orientation, my own identity because I am worried he may change me into something else. It is this fear that is basically is coming in the way of societal acceptance. And that is why I said when they are positive. They will be able to bring about a change must faster than a rapid activism and we are talking about homophobia and we are talking about discrimination by the society. We should also talk about internalized homophobia. The irrational fear which a person with an identity which is undergoing through that so that is a major issue also. Now let us keep aside that point, now coming back to the counseling. A counseling issue has to be tailored to the needs of the concerned individual. So in this case the mother is considering something as abnormal.or normal and it is going to take some time. She will not accept immediately itself. You have done the first thing right. One you have ruled out the presence of HIV infection. Then slowly we have to get that lady into understand why the child is behaving that way. What she can do to make the child comfortable and behave within quotes responsibly. ;

Dr Vijay: I think doctor Reddy tested on the one important point that is this latent homosexuality. There is a fear in straight people that maybe they are also gay, a very deep fear and the question is why should there be a fear? Why not just think of it as once evolution sexually. That again comes from lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, lack of spaces where you can even discuss it. There are not spaces where you can even discuss your own sexuality with anybody, either an expert or not because usually as Narayan said people who are dealing with sexuality with relationships are generally themselves discriminated against it. you don't take them too seriously. It is only in forums like this that they get taken seriously. So I think basically what we need is more positivity and more spaces to be able to talk about this.

R2: I want to continue what our panel just commented on. Perhaps one stage in life where people are completely not judgemental. It is where they are very young. So do you know of any examples or are there any theories or propositions by which we can talk to children about these issues so as they mature into adolescence or adulthood that they accept that there is different variations in the human nature and that they are able to live life like accepting everybody. So do you know of any instances that are taking place in India or that will be possible or possible to address this situation to increase the awareness at a very young age? ;

Dr Vijay: I agree entirely with you that you need to start young but we are living in a situation where governments don't want to have sex education in school. Leave alone you know, gender orientation you know, see basically they idea is that when you have knowledge you don't have fear and when you don't have fear you behave normally with the individual. You treat them like anybody else but with all the stories that we heard from all three of them so how cruel other children can be also because when the child seems to be a little different, children are also very cruel and they cruel again not because they are basically cruel people but because they just don't know anything else and I agree with you that we should be starting young but I think first of all we have got to get this sex thing out of our closet, we are still, we are not yet outed as far as sex is concerned. Leave alone anything else but are there any initiatives. I hope there are but not that I am ware of, I don't know if Narayan is aware of any ;

Dr Narayan: Just to add on to what Vijay has said, the point is well taken. NGO's want to implement sexual health education, the government is interested in implementing that but opposition is there. because of political consideration the governments are going back on that. Now leave that alone, let us be little pragmatic. Who has to impart this sex education? My concern today is it is going to the wrong hands. Why do you talk about sex education to children when parents themselves do require sex education and number two whoever is going to impart sex education? They must have two primary requisites, one comfort with the subject of sexuality or knowledge. Second comfort with their own sexuality. Only when I become comfort with my own sexuality by our dental surgeon very clearly demonstrated now. Then the right message will not go unless the teacher is comfortable and what are we doing to impart that comfort? i think without imparting that comfort and training a certain number of core teachers in this area. If you jump into education we are going to create more problems than solve problems.

Speaker 4: I want to add one point here that sex education just necessarily like Mr AT said. It is not just for parents. I think even the counselors. Sometimes this is our experience in Bangalore except for three people who are like very sensitive towards sexuality issues. If we send anyone for some kind of counseling, we have had such horrible experiences where they will come back and say no maybe we will introduce some therapy where you can become heterosexual now this whole idea of becoming or coming back to heterosexually, there is slightly jarring and how much ever we try to explain negotiate with counselor it is not working so even we really need to educate, bring it like in public forum to sensitize. I think that is it.;

Dr Vijay: Absolutely I agree entirely with you. See I wanted to say this when iwas going to talk but I will say it now mental health professionals themselves by virtue of being human beings and being part of this great morass which we call India tend to have very lopsided attitude towards sex and sexuality. Now I remember when see there is something called the American psychiatric associations diagnostic and statistical manual for mental disorders. That classifies all the mental disorders. Now the first addition had homosexuality as a sexual deviation. The second addition took away homosexuality from sexual deviation and bought in a category called ego distonic homosexuality that is in other words you are living life as a homosexual but you are not completely comfortable with it. and the third edition onwards they eliminated it completely. I think mental health professionals have also evolved along those parameters. Many of them are still stuck with ego distonic homosexuality. So what happens they try and cure people of their gayness. I remember when I started general practice in 84. my third client was a young gay boy rather not the boy it was the family. Even then I told the family I will counsel you but I can't cure the boy because he is not ill and it didn't go down well. It still doesn't go down well because most family members are unable to see that but you are right many counselors will try to engage the individual in therapy to help them deal with their homosexuality. To help them come to terms with the social reactions to homosexuality. Yes because I mean all three of you have spoken about the difficult times that all of you have had but not to change their gender orientation but yes you are right. There is a big problem but I think many consellors associations are trying to address it. So hopefully we have reason to be optimistic for the future.

R3: I am having a question. Yeah here actually I work in a institute where many of the transgenders come and I sit there and unless we give some money, they don't go. Sometimes she got scared and a bit aggressive but why don't people say that they are employed as bus drivers, auto drivers, working with 1000 people in a factory, working as construction workers so why don't you educate them in that sense so that also public is not scared of the unknown and another question is we are talking about a homosexuality a but in man and woman and woman and man, if they are in any country anywhere in the world. Is incest legalized if both the parties are agreed, is it moral or immoral?;

Dr Vijay: See the question on transgenders I am going to give Dr Kalke to answer because I think she has got the best handle on it ;

Kalki: Yeah when he says that transgender should actually have employment opportunities like bus conductors and other sectors. Yeah it is true that; transgenders need to have an employment but before putting them into employment. The most important thing is to sensitize the public about the gender issues, the transgender issues because still there is so much of fear and misunderstanding and there is so much of misinformation also speaking about transgender people. I mean on the one side the government and the media has become supportive and is trying to help the transgenders but that is happening only for the transgenders but on the media, I mean on the public side This sensitization is not happening. There are so many myths. So many misinformation's still exists among the public. That has to go. The public has to actually treat the transgenders as equals and accept them as normal people. Only then I think transgenders will be free to go and to work as a bus conductor or in other sectors. That is how it is but the government is of course trying to provide employment and there are also many NGO's and few corporates have also come up to give employment opportunities but the thing is many of them have failed. That is the truth because transgenders for so many years they have done sex work and begging and it is a really good money in that. That I tell you. In sex work and in begging it is really good money and when you actually go for a work. I mean in an office or even in a BPO, you may get around 20 to 25 thousand rupees but a transgender person earns every month more than that just by begging and sex work and not only this they need to support most of them. I am not saying all of them, support their biological family that is they live as a transgender person here but their family might be around 200,300 miles away in the state somewhere else in the village and the family might not really know what they are doing here. They live here as a woman, they might go for begging, they might go for sex work. They send the money to their family. They support their whole family. That is how most of the thing is done. That is why when the government of the NGO's come forward to offer them a job like 6000, 7000 rupees, it becomes difficult for them to change but definitely in a few years they would definitely change.

R4: I would like to respond to a question from a lady earlier there. I am a practicing child physiatrist so maybe I have a few words I can say. In terms of teaching children, I hope I have the doctors permission to do this. in terms of talking to children about sexuality. Number one as the doctor said, the person talking to the child has to be comfortable first and then the topic of either homosexuality, bisexuality or transgender. Believe me even in the US not ever parent is willing to accept the sexuality of their children and children are not willing to accept the sexual choices of their parents including homosexuality. It becomes an issue in treatment. Most of these children end up with school difficulties because that is the only place that they can act out their difficulties and people like me then get involved in their lives. Treatment as the doctor said includes the parents. Without that this is not going to happen and to just share a little bit more. I am now in the process of treating a family who has a five year old transgender boy and it is an uphealth task. It is not easy but I do want to share what Dr Vijay said that it doesn't go well always. Thank you.

Dr Narayan: One question has been asked I will not answer that incest. I don't know the tamil word for incest means one father is having sex with his daughter or mother is having sex with the son. These kind of acts will be called incest. Incest means any time, any country up till now not able to give a law. It is against the law of every country across cultures and across times.

People's Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.
R4: Hello well good morning. First of all My name is Doctor Michael Hubert in NGO. Well I appreciate the efforts taken. In the city level it is wonderful and as an NGO we know how much difficult it is in the rural areas as we have found hupple task in doing our eco sanitation in our child labor work. We know how difficult it is and especially to take this across in the village front. Now I come to the other part of it especially the transgender as my brother was mentioning about the employment towards the transgender sisters. Yes we have to do a lot more as Kalki has said but at the same time there is a term called socio responsibility which even transgenders have towards the community which they should not forget. Well the way Miss Kalki was explaining is like something like justifying them like whatever they do is fine and then people has to accept that is not good. Everybody has their own responsibility. I may have my biological responsibility but at the same time my income level is poor. I have to live accordingly. So there now there should be some sort of a mind set or a counseling for these sisters also where they should feel what they are doing like begging ir forcual sexual working is bad. They should not do it. It only aggravates or drinks away our resources what we are trying to wedge up these ones like. So there should be some sort of balance. The transgenders also should come little bit forward and also the community should also come forward that the wedge is better made. That is my whole idea of it like one point what he said was very good like that this income generation is better addressed to them and most of these issues could drain away and the reasons can be reasons. I need 20000 rupees and then I get 5000 rupees are there for always. Even I may need but this is not the cost like, justifying the cost like so it is better that we should also help them in trying to understand the community so that these issues can be made better. Thank you.
action plus
begging
bisexual
bus conductors
children
class
counselors
discrimination
employment
female to male
harassment
hierarchy
homophobia
homosexuals
lesbians
male to female
parents
people's panchayats on resisting stigma and homophobia
prostitution
sex education
transgender
trucking

Sumathi: I would actually like to answer to that. I will speak in tamil only. Now what he is saying if you see, for the eunuchs I am speaking in tamil. What is he saying if you see, this incident is for eunuchs, lot of problem they are giving, like this and like that you are saying. They should feel that they also have responsibilities in the society. That is definitely true. Eunuchs are also part of the society, they should mix with society and live, they have that responsibility but what is happening if you see everything is going on this way. When we go out generally I am saying in the day time men are making fun of them in the night they are inviting for sex. If that is a topic then, if the government and media are willing to help also in the public there is no big awareness. Now he is saying we can give them so many employee opportunities, they can go and work over there. In a house they hesitate to keep eunuch as a servant. People who are lame and blind they don't hesitate to work in their homes. In their homes will they keep eunuchs as their servants, let me ask. I just want to respond to the same point. At one level when we speak about transgenders, we are constantly talking about eunuchs and somewhere they do have a profession that supports, which you can support in terms of begging or sex work or whatever. The female born transpeople which is the female born person who lives a life of a man, now for such people there is no community and no support system. In fact whether it is male to female or female to male. If you are really thinking of why can't they work, then why couldn't you allow them to continue their education. What were you doing then? One sec please do not take it personally. This is a question for our system because the system can only recognize binary gender, binary sex attitude. So this is a question for system. That is it.
People's Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.
action plus
begging
bisexual
bus conductors
children
class
counselors
discrimination
employment
female to male
harassment
hierarchy
homophobia
homosexuals
lesbians
male to female
parents
people's panchayats on resisting stigma and homophobia
prostitution
sex education
transgender
trucking

R5: Yes one thought. I just want to add one point to your question he said now for the eunuchs in the society there should be a responsibility, that should not happen. They should have some social responsibility but what story he said if you listened. What kind of experiences he has faced. Now when two people are eating on the roadside, They do not know a person who comes because they are wearing a women's or mans dress. For that reason they have beaten them and removed their dress. In this kind of society what kind of responsibility is it taking for out eunuch sisters and others? That is why we are talking of social responsibility on one side but under the label of social responsibility we should know that cruelty is happening. That is what we should understand, for this cruelty only people have come and spoken in front. Because of this violence, like this facts are visible in the forum. When we go out, we should stay without forgetting it
People's Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.
action plus
begging
bisexual
bus conductors
children
class
counselors
discrimination
employment
female to male
harassment
hierarchy
homophobia
homosexuals
lesbians
male to female
parents
people's panchayats on resisting stigma and homophobia
prostitution
sex education
transgender
trucking

R6; I have something to add. This discussion about children adolescence teenage as I speak as a outgay man when I say this. one is if the school there is a problem these kind of children suffer from identity issues. I am telling from my personal experience that there are some very really bizzard and strange problems as well as they come up with children. I never had like a problem with school. In fact it was the opposite because I knew that I was gay and at some point I knew that I was even going to come out. I had this reverse pressure where I thought if I was extraordinarily good, if I am an extraordinarily perfect student, if I am an extraordinarily great in some extra curricular activity and if I am so good that maybe at some point we might overlook the fact that I am gay. So this pressure of excellence was just so high. Now I am trying to revel in mediocrity. I am trying really hard to be mediocre. I will tell you it was really hard. I went to a therapist and for me like this whole pressure to excel was just so high. At some point I just wanted to drop everything and be just amazingly mediocre. That is one thing second thing that I wanted to respond to was probably what Sumarhi said. Also that informs most of our discussion relates the question of class as in like how is it, are the problems similar over like class distinctions and certain classes when they undergo this problem is it like more accentuated. I have been working with the question of sexuality for the last four years and I am reaaly trying hard to think of any generalization which will work for me like over a day. Honestly because you would think that, it is true I mean working class people, the visible suffering like outside, on the roads, from people, everywhere but then I think issues for people seem to be really different. I mean if you are visibly fm in it and if you have quote and quote straight acting and if you live with the family in a Thiruvani or south madras apartment. It is still hard I mean for example a portion of community I mean when we say community, when transgender people, koti friends talk to a community, the emotion of community seems to be slightly different. For them it is a more real sense of community. They live with communes and when there is a visibility issue and when there is a violence issue. The community, you see the verizon network. Advertisement, it is like having all these people standing behind you. It is literally like that. but when most gay or lesbian or bisexual people. I mean being of a certain higher upper class is not always working to your advantage. Your sense of community is very hazy just because you are a part of a yahoo group online like I had an issue at a shop. I was thrown out of a shop. I mean I couldn't go online and bond with people. I mean my sense of community is something else so the issues or stakes are something else and class I mean we don't have to see it in that order. I mean we don't have to see the review as the class goes up, the problems are somehow easier. I think the problems are different and we shouldn't do the mistake of hierachising problem saying some peoples problems are more important than some other peoples problems or some problems are somehow more of problems than some other problems. I think we should, when we are discussing of this we should be mindful of those as well.

I speak as an out gay man when I say this, there are some very bizarre things which happen at school although I did not have them – it was the opposite. Because I knew that I was gay and that at some point it was going to come out, I had this reverse pressure in which I thought that if I'm extraordinarily good, if I'm an extraordinarily perfect student, or great at some extra curricular activity that at some point they might overlook the fact that I'm gay. The pressure of excellence was just so high. Now I'm trying to revel in mediocrity – I'm trying really hard to be mediocre. It was really hard – I went to a therapist and I told her that this pressure was so high that at some point I wanted to drop everything and be amazingly mediocre.
The second thing that I want to talk about is the question of class. Are the problems similar over the class discriminations? I have been working with the question of sexuality for the last four years and I would be wary to generalize. It's true that for working class people, the suffering is more visible. The issues are a bit different if you are not visibly effeminate. And you live with your family in a south Madras apartment, it's still hard. For example the notion of community. When transgender people, Kothi people talk about community it seems to be slightly different – for them it's a more real sense of community, they live with communes and when there is a visibility issue or a violence issue – you have the whole community standing behind you literally. I'm saying that being of a certain higher class does not always work to your advantage. Your sense of community is very hazy – just because you're a part of a Yahoo group online – when I was thrown out of a shop – I couldn't go and bond with people. My sense of community is something else. So the issues are different in the different classes. We shouldn't make the mistake of hierarchizing problems. When we are discussing this, we should be mindful of those as well.
People's Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.
action plus
begging
bisexual
bus conductors
children
class
counselors
discrimination
employment
female to male
harassment
hierarchy
homophobia
homosexuals
lesbians
male to female
parents
people's panchayats on resisting stigma and homophobia
prostitution
sex education
transgender
trucking

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