The Trans-National Indian Family
The “ideal”/“happy” heteronormative and patriarchal Indian family has largely invisibilized sexual and gender minorities. The so-called benevolent family has often perpetrated violence upon non-confirming members and silenced their voices. The family has also operated in its own authoritarian fashion, neglecting the disabled, banning the “misfit”, ignoring the less successful. With its attitude varying from being benevolent to dictatorial, in this aspect of control and coercion, the family is akin to the nation state.
And yet, a look at the passing decade from the NALSA judgement 2014 to striking down of Section 377 in 2018 and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, and in view of recent marriage equality hearings, will tell us that landmark legal judgements and shifting societal mores have been rewriting what was once considered to be sacrosanct. Amidst these developing movements, how does health intersect with socio-economic identities and how should we look at marginalised identities outside and beyond the moral prescription of families?
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Tana Bana: Looking at these “trans-gressions” both within and outside the system of the Indian family, what do you think are some of the ways in which gender non-confirming identities have been challenging the status quo of the traditional Indian family and what are their sociocultural impact/legacy?
Dr Aqsa Shaikh: When you talk about queer persons in the context of the family, the nature of the relationship is rebellious as the system of the family doesn’t accept them. This system of family is typically a heteronormative, patriarchal, and Brahminised one. When we talk about the entity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual (LGBTQIA+), especially transgender persons and visibly transgender persons in terms of hijra, kinnar or Aravani communities, a lot of them have either succumbed to the demands of their biological/legal families and left them or have been thrown out by their native families. And in this regard there is something unique in the South Asian system—the hijra gharana, kinnar samuday or the jammat system, which in spite of their drawbacks are systems where transpersons have created their own communities, with a grandmother-mother-daughter kind of a family tree where the older folks take care of the younger ones and vice versa. There’s a sense of democracy, and these systems have been in existence for centuries parallel to the state-sanctioned/government family system.
The legal purview of the family is also changing. Today, live-in relationships are legally recognised and are covered under the provisions of the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA).
For a lot of queer people, especially the new generation of queer folks, there’s an emerging concept of the chosen family, where members choose certain people to be a part of their family. However, the legal recognition of the chosen family is still limited. In such a scenario, the question arises: Who can make medical decisions for queer people—the biological or the chosen family? In addition to addressing these challenges, we have to also locate this evolution of the concept of family as much within the queer community as within other movements such as the feminist movements, anti-caste movements, which are collectively making the traditional family churn.
Tana Bana: Alongside the modernising families, do you see a tendency to uphold the traditional Indian family and anti-secular sentiments?
Dr Aqsa Shaikh: There’s been a backlash on interfaith marriages and The Special Marriage Act, 1954, which is in keeping with the growing erosion of secular values and an emphasis on the endogamous, biological family. With the government increasingly giving credibility to the biological family, the ideology is also penetrating law. The Uniform Civil Code, for instance, fails to recognise the indigenous systems of family practised by various tribal communities. Another example would be the Surrogacy Act—Section 2(1)(zg) mandates that a surrogate mother can only be a woman who is genetically related to the intending couple or intending woman—which reinforces the State ideology of the authority of the biological family.
Similarly, the chosen family of queer persons often comes under the wrath of the authorities. There are polyamorous and polyandrous relationships or interpersonal settings, which involves a third partner, sometimes by mutual consent. But, in the absence of legal recognition, what happens to them? Who will take care of them?
Under a growing tendency to portray an all-encompassing transgender identity, the hijra gharana system has also been losing its legitimacy, resulting in the erosion of regional identities and cultures of diverse social ethnic groups. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, there is an opposition against the hijra gharana but not the kinnar samuday, owing to members of gharana largely being Muslim.
Tana Bana: Historically, the public health machinery has perpetuated dominant social stigma and biases, denying health rights and dignity to marginalised populations. In present-day India, with a rising Hindutva nationalism on one hand, and technological innovation revolutionising healthcare on the other hand, how do you think diverse marginalised communities can be better served, especially since health doesn’t exist in a vacuum?
Dr Aqsa Shaikh: Health does not exist in a vacuum; rather it is rooted in socio-economic contexts. Unfortunately, the right to health is not a part of our constitution. However, Right to Life is guaranteed in the Indian constitution. But, marginalised communities are burdened with navigating an unfriendly healthcare system. When I say there is a problem of access, I do not merely mean a lack of geographical or economic access but a lack of access owing to their marginalised identities.
During the peak of the pandemic, there was a propaganda of "Corona jihad" against the minority Muslim community, labelling them as super spreaders, thus stigmatising them. This resulted in a call for boycott for Muslim fruit sellers, weakening their health-seeking behaviour. Often subjected to the Islamophobic slur of being labelled as “child-producing factories”, Muslim hijab/niqab-wearing women were doubly marginalised. The issue is not about them not getting admission to a hospital but about the interaction not being dignified.
Simultaneously, violence was perpetrated against women, persons of oppressed castes and lepers. Not too long ago gay men were targeted and demonised at the outbreak of monkeypox.
From battles between legal and chosen names, gender and pronouns, to lack of trans-affirming restrooms and wards for visibly transgender people, navigating the public healthcare machinery was often a nightmare. Several were forced to not report to a doctor, but to a pharmacy etc. The vaccination centres too did not have facilities for transgender people. Additionally, an overwhelming majority of transgender people lack valid or mandated documentation. Similarly, the sadhus of India, who had long left home and the family, didn’t have ID cards. Street children do not have any ID cards. So, there was a challenge in terms of how to get them vaccinated. This points to a larger lack of accountability. Hence, digital healthcare is good per se but for it to address gaps and biases, community participation is a must.
Tana Bana: Traditionally, the Indian family has often perpetrated violence, abuse, neglect and silenced victims/survivors, not letting them heal let alone seek justice. How should we rethink family and freedom, health and healing, while still navigating a heteropatriarchal, queerphobic, and transphobic society?
Dr Aqsa Shaikh: Family is a sacred space within Indian society. We have been told that it’s ultimately the family that will look after us in old age and so on. There has always been a constant reinforcement of the virtues of the family, ensuring their grip remains tightened around individuals. However, for a lot of queer individuals and other minorities, the family has been a site of constant physical, surgical violence, medical and emotional violence.
For instance, if an intersex child is born with a larger clitoris—there’s nothing called a normal clitoris—the child is made to undergo a procedure to cut it short to the usual. This is akin to female genital mutilation. This doesn’t help the child lead a better life; on the contrary, when they grow up to realise their family perpetrated this surgical violence upon them it leads to trauma.
Medical violence includes conversion therapy, which when undertaken medically entails the administration of electric shocks and psychotropic drugs, and when undertaken in the absence of medical supervision, parents and family members generally turn to spiritual babas.
The family also perpetrates sexual abuse in terms of corrective rape; forcing a boy/teenager to have sex with a sex worker in order to make them “straight”.
Often, unmarried lesbian women and gay men are burdened with providing financial and physical caregiving to their biological families despite them having been subjected to physical/emotional abuse in their hands.
These intersect with their health-seeking behaviours, leading to high levels of mental stressors, mental disorders, and mood disorders.
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