Transgender community searches for a new identity

Radhika Giri
The Statesman, India

CHENNAI, Jan. 20. – Long hair decked in flowers, bodies swathed in colourful sarees, the mandatory lipstick, bindhi and bangles and the elaborate sway have traditionally identified Tamil Nadu’s aravanis.
However, this appearance may soon be a thing of the past.

The community, also known elsewhere in the country as hijras, or in modern terminology as transgender or transsexual, has always lived an ostracised existence. But they are now drawing from lessons in etiquette to enable them to reach out to a non-responsive society and find a new identity that is accepted.
“Why blame it all on society? Even we are to blame,” says Suguna, who has been a member of the aravani community for the past 20 years. Clad in a comely blue saree, Suguna can pass off for any South Indian housewife. Although they often consider themselves as members of a “third sex”, aravanis often refer to themselves as and dress as women. At the VHS auditorium in Chennai on Thursday, Suguna was one of the 35 aravanis receiving a lesson on behaviour. These women had congregated from various parts of Tamil Nadu for the third ‘Aravanigal Dinam’ (Transgender Day).
Over the past two years the tutorial has quietly covered about 30,000 transsexuals spread in seven districts. The aravanis are advised on how to behave when in the company of those outside their community, even if other people are rude. The ultimate aim is to win them over. The idea took off after a proposal by a meeting of jamaats (a jamaat is a congregation of aravanis) under the initiative of the

Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative-Voluntary Health Services (TAI-VHS)mooted the idea of celebrating Transgender Day on 18 January...