What an IIT student coming out as transgender means for our LGBT rights

"Scholars Avenue", the campus newspaper of IIT Kharagpur, published a piece in its edition dated April 6, written by a fourth-year undergrad student at the institute. Calling herself Anamika, the student reveals in the piece that she is transgender, a fact she had always known but did not have the courage to accept for a long time.

It's a wonderfully open piece, in which Anamika speaks about her struggles to come out as transgender. Growing up in a traditional setup, she faced uncertainty about her true identity, so she chose to mask it by focusing on academics. She is obviously brilliant because she managed to crack IIT-JEE and land a spot at Kharagpur. However, Kharagpur turned out to be more than just an academic mecca. Away from family and living alone for the first time, she felt confident of exploring her identity.

However, the engineering college setup, as anyone who has attended one would know, is not the most conducive for coming out. There is little discussion of identity issues on campus since classes are restricted to the physical sciences. Furthermore, at an elite institute like the IIT, the overall environment is geared towards high achievement - not the most salubrious space for the halting process of coming out.

In her third semester, Anamika nurtured thoughts of killing herself. College is the first time when most people start fashioning thoughts of their future selves: how they will live, who they will end up with. To a transgender still questioning her identity, such contemplation can often tip into bleakness. As most transgenders will tell you, the burden of living in a body that does not attest to their gender identity can be tiresome. Anamika saw few prospects of undergoing transition any time soon.

But the same system that was difficult to negotiate also offered support. A senior who came to know of her dilemma advised her to visit the campus counselling centre. Discussing her issues with a willing speaker helped. Over the next two years, Anamika came to accept her situation and also gained the confidence to come out as a transgender. Today she is out to some friends and hopes to ultimately undergo transition.

(To be sure, there are tertiary institutes that do offer support to LGBT students today. IIT Bombay runs Saathi, an in-campus LGBT support group that actively fights for gay rights. Queer Campus, started by a bunch of DU students, now has chapters in several other cities. The presence of such groups also encourages discussion of broader areas of interest such as gender studies.)

Indian social structures are so entwined with ideas of the traditional family that to live as a queer person can be a huge challenge. We tend to think of the queer as "others", and label them with epithets that bolster this otherness: hijra, kothi, gaandu, chikna, and so on. Understand that this name-calling is intended to show the person their place. It is not merely a discrimination issue; it is equally mixed up with class. In this scheme, queer is not merely different, it is also poor, lower caste, away from the pale of "normal" society. The traditional family, composed of a husband and a wife, is then the only institution worth protecting socially. Anything else is fair game. No wonder the queer face intense pressure to remain in the closet and lead lives of secrecy.

Anamika's story is hugely important because as a middle class person with an IIT degree to boot, she kills perceptions that have caged the debate around transgender rights in this country. While the gay rights movement has its fair share of middle class voices, the transgender community has few, if any, such advocates. This is not to suggest that hijra rights are not worth fighting for, but rather that visibility from across the class spectrum reinforces the fight.

Finally, as Anamika too attests in her piece, the internet helps. Stories of other lives can be a strong motivation to get rid of the shackles. This is especially true today when shows such as Transparent, about an elderly American man choosing to transition, are beamed around the world. Laverne Cox's standout role in Orange is the New Black is another example. An entire subset of people, so far invisible or, worse, mocked on television, is staking its rightful place on the glamour radar.

This can have significant ripple effects in shaping opinions in countries such as India where the discussion on transgender, and indeed broader LGBT, rights is still prehistoric.