Living without a life

As the New Year dawns, a young writer asks for tolerance and understanding for a misunderstood segment of society

The name ‘Hantane’ conjures up a picture of the most evanescent but romantic and beautiful period of anybody’s life: youth.

For though there are other universities around the country there is probably no symbol more archetypal, more powerful, of youthfulness than Hantane and the Peradeniya University.

This has been so deeply imprinted into the popular imagination that every year, first year undergraduates from every university make Hantane the destination of their annual trip, arriving there to see the mist-enshrouded mountains: reaching the pinnacle- so to speak- of their youth.

But even as I write this, I cannot stop my hand from itching to tell another version- my version- of the Hantane story. It is the story, also, of many others, who have been deprived of Hantane- of youth, and-also - of life.

I am aware that there are many people who feel they have no life: those crippled, not only physically, but also mentally, and through shyness.

But I have in mind a special group when writing this. I call them transsexuals – for the want, only, of a better description.

In reality, the ground line of being a transsexual is that you have no life. Worse- you feel other people are living your life.

As a transsexual youth I had a very difficult school life- branded, ostracized, bullied. I looked forward to campus, dreaming of Hantane, the flamboyants, the prime of my own youth…..

But I was wrong to suppose that an advancement merely of years would bring me happiness. When Hantane came it had no meaning for me. I felt just as lonely and frustrated up there, as I did in a classroom in hot, dusty, Colombo. I wanted to grasp- at the mountain? At the mist? In a futile desperation I tried to grasp my youth. And amidst all the singing, the laughter, I felt hot tears well up.

An anticlimax: that is what life is for a transsexual. Your Sunday mood may have been ruined by this article, but would you believe, I never had a Sunday mood? It was all obliterated by fear and shame and guilt- the three guardian deities of the transsexual. Because every Monday it would be back to bullying – back to living someone else’s life.

But, if you want to make life better for people like me, make this your New Year resolution: avoid, at all costs, gender discrimination. Remember that most transsexuals take their own lives in their youth. Be considerate of those who have to try hard to achieve what you have so easily- a life.