OF A GIRL WHO WANTS TO BE A BOY

It’s not the name that she was given at birth but one that she feels suits her better. Flitting between identities, woman to most, a man to herself and those who know her best, Neel is a minority even among transgenders who are a sexual minority. Neel is a transman or a woman who identifies herself as a man. “My parents, both government servants, thought little of it when, as a child, I insisted on getting my hair cut short or preferred to wear boys’ clothes. But as I started growing up, it became an issue. One day, I had a fight with my mother over it. I guess they expected me to grow out of it,” he remembers. Though a member of a LGBT rights advocay group, he hasn’t come out with his identity at his work place. “I am unsure about how supportative my colleagues would be if I came out with my identity. As of now, it is easy to just dismiss me as a girl with short hair and in jeans,” he says. It is this same apprehension that holds her back from opting for hormone therapy to medically realign her body with the gender identity that she is comfortable with. “Treatment is expensive. I can expect no support from my family. I am not sure how supportive my office will be. Also, all my official documents carry my birth name and gender,” says Neel. “The SC verdict has given us the legal right to identify ourselves as the third gender, but has it brought us social acceptance?” she wonders adding that many of her friends who have undergone sex change procedures have faced much harassment at the government offices they visited to get their gender identity changed from male to female. “This even when they had supporting documents,” she says.