Writing Their Own Stories By Challenging Gender Roles: An Observation of Revathi, Vidya And David Reimer’s Choices
Journal Title: International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies (IJIMS) - Year 2016, Vol 3, Issue 4
Abstract
Traditional gender roles and their repetitive performativity form the basic structure of a stable heteronormative society. It is mainly in the voices of transgenders and transsexuals themselves, where we can find the hollowness of these given presumptions. My reading of The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi; I am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey by Vidya and As Nature Made Him: The Boy who was Raised as a Girl by David Reimer is an endeavour to raise the emergent issues of sex/gender binaries, identity politics and predominant social and medical discourses that consider heterosexuality as a regulative strategy – denying social justice to the gender benders. While Revathi and Vidya have self-consciously decided to become members of the hijra clan by undergoing excruciating surgery to lose their ‘manhood’, David /Brenda’s fate, after a fatal accident in infancy, has been decided upon by the medical team headed by Dr. John Money. I have in fact juxtaposed Revathi and Vidya with David to show how even on cross-cultural platforms the dominant heterosexual normativity plays decisive role in one’s sexual orientation and social identity. And therefore to transcend artificially constructed gender regulations one requires extraordinary courage and perseverance to fight against the indignities burdened by the society. These true stories urge us to break free from biasness and esteem the choices made by transgenders and transsexuals and allow them to live the life with respect and dignity.
Authors and Affiliations
Gargee Ghosh
Keywords
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