CHENNAI:  A week after Mylapore’s Raga Sudha Hall played host to some highly talented yet very unlikely guests — Tamizh musicians who have taken up the cause of environmental activism on behalf of the oft-ignored north Madras — it set the stage for a host of transgender artists and activists for the first time. A place that has long since been synonymous with Carnatic concerts and Bharatanatyam recitals was witness to poetry readings and record dance performances by transmen and transwomen, offering them a passage to the mainstream. All thanks to Chennai Kalai Theru Vizha’s insistence on extending inclusivity to marginalised arts and people.

Making a shift 
“A platform like this did not exist 15 years ago. We had to organise events ourselves; we’d call 10 people and they would be people of our own. But now, I am starting to see this shift to the mainstream. It is nice to see so many new faces among the audience. For our work spreads only through word of mouth. So long, we had been talking among ourselves; now, with the Kalai Vizha, we have been able to reach more people,” pointed out Sankari of Nirangal, one of the two NGOs that Kalai Vizha had collaborated with for its first Thirunar Vizha. 

Day one of the weekend event had many artistes from the trans community putting up their work on display as not just a celebration of their art but also a quiet declaration of their everyday travails. Between her hard-hitting poetry readings and art installation, The Red Wall Project, the inimitable Kalki Subramaniam — artist, activist, writer and author — called for the need to discard the debilitating stereotypes the world still held on to; she also placed the onus of reparations on the society that had been the cause of strife in the first place. 

Identity struggles
With a solo theatre performance that has had global attention in as long as a decade, the astounding A Revathi, writer and activist, offered a glimpse into the life of ‘your neighbourhood transwoman’ — detailing the identity struggles, need for self-assertion, the born-again journey of adopted ‘mothers’ and ‘daughters’, the value of such trusted kinship. This, alongside the barrage of assault and abuse that’s thrust upon the people just living life on their terms.

Despite the exemplary work of these women — Revathi’s books are prescribed text for Gender Studies in many colleges and universities, Kalki’s Sahodari Foundation continues to offer a platform for the empowerment of the community — a brief interaction they had with the audience showed how much more there is to be achieved in the arena of inclusivity and sensitivity. 

Spectators, most likely well-intentioned, had only to ask them about their sense of fashion (too loud, in his opinion), sex reassignment surgeries and ways of sexual pleasure. While they could have easily been dismissed at any other forum, Kalki and Revathi took the time to provide them with meaningful answers. Even as Kalki thinks it’s a breach of privacy. “As a person, as a woman, as a transwoman, I feel that I shouldn’t answer that. Let him go to Google to find it. But as an activist working for the community, there is a compulsion to answer. If some ignorant person is asking this question, it is also an opportunity for me to answer it to a hundred people for they may have it too,” she explained. 

Perhaps if the society did not have such rigid norms for sex and gender, we wouldn’t need reassignment surgeries, quips Revathi. “Naan Bharathi oda meesai vecha penna irunthuttu poren, (Let me be Bharathi’s ideology of a woman — but one sporting a moustache),” she remarked to a question on surgery options. 

Educational reforms 
It was to address these trappings of the society that the Vizha featured the works of transmen too, a section of people that gets even less attention and care than transwomen. It also offered a platform for the ‘record dance’ — a work that has provided a livelihood for many from the community. Even this came with a heavy dose of reality — a dance crew named after Tara, a transwoman, whose death in a police station in Chennai was quickly forgotten over the disruption that came with demonetisation. 

While most of the society is happy doing the bare minimum for people it marginalises, the Vizha was a means to reassert the need for educational reform. Schoolteacher Mahalakshmi Kannan from Jawadu Hills and assistant professor V Sri Latha both emphasised on the importance of keeping children within the fold of the family and the education system to aid them through the transition, their identity crisis. 
Neelam NGO’s Muththamizh Kalai Vizhi insisted on representation — a means to offer children a different narrative about the transgender community. Kalki, though she is happy to witness the change in certain quarters, thinks there’s much more that has to be done. She didn’t end the night without doing her part in offering an alternative narrative. 

“You call it the third gender but we are the first gender, for we have transitioned from one state to another. Women come second for they are the creators. It is men who are the third gender.” Only then do you realise that it had to be said and it had to be said by her.

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Chennai: A Chennai resident has moved the Madras High Court, seeking to declare passport rules which require submission of Sex Reassignment Surgery certificate for gender determination as “unconstitutional”, saying they violate Article 21 of the Constitution that deals with personal liberty.

A division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee issued notice to Union Ministries of Law and Justice and External Affairs, returnable by December 12, on the petition of Sivakumar TD.

The petitioner, who has been actively involved in furthering the interests of the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) community, referred to a Supreme Court judgment relating to

the rights of transgenders in the plea.

He said the judgment had authoritatively held that any insistence for Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) for declaring one’s gender was ‘immoral’ and ‘illegal’.

The judgment also held that a person’s right to choose and express a gender identity fell within the ambit of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

Alluding to Passport Rules 1980, with reference to change of sex in their passport and list of documents to be provided, Sivakumar said Rule 39 sought from an applicant certification from the hospital where the sex change surgery was performed.

He contended that the rule was illegal and unconstitutional.

Highlighting the plight of transgender people who applied for passports as late as 2016, the petitioner said though the apex court had laid down clear directives that insistence on SRS certificate was illegal, they were required to produce a medical certificate for it.

He submitted that world over insistence on SRS certificate was held to be ‘unnecessary’ and ‘violative’ of the choice of the individual.

The petitioner sought the intervention of the high court to declare passport rules requiring production of SRS certificate as unconstitutional and being violative of Article 21 of the Constitution.

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For more than a decade, Northwestern professor Celeste Watkins-Hayes documented the lives of more than 100 women living with HIV/AIDS in Chicago and beyond.

Now, the stories of the obstacles they faced, and the ways in which their diagnoses transformed their lives, are featured in a new book.

It’s called “Remaking a Life: How Women Living with HIV/AIDS Confront Inequality.”

The book opens with a statement Watkins-Hayes describes as powerful – and complicated: “If it weren’t for HIV, I’d probably be dead.”

Watkins-Hayes told “Chicago Tonight” she was initially confused by the logic of that statement, told to her by one of the women featured in the book. “How can an illness responsible for the deaths of millions around the world help to save a life?” she asked.  

“And what I came to learn … is what she was explaining was that the support system that was necessary for her to move from what I call ‘dying from,’ to ‘living with,’ to ‘thriving despite’ HIV/AIDS was found within the HIV support community,” Watkins-Hayes said. “She was telling me about the significance of the social support network that constitutes our HIV/AIDS safety net and pointing to it as a lifesaving resource that helped save her life.”

Those safety nets and the HIV community were crucial to the personal and political transformations of the women profiled in the book.

Worldwide, 36 million people live with HIV/AIDS. In the United States, 1.1 million are living with it, and there are about 40,000 new infections each year.

But in the early days of the epidemic, white gay men were the face of the disease, making it difficult for cisgender and transgender women to be addressed in the HIV/AIDS response, Watkins-Hayes said.

As more women tested positive, Watkins Hayes says “it became clear that the infrastructure that was being built and the mobilization that was being mounted didn’t necessarily include the experiences of HIV positive women.”

The focus on women living with HIV/AID didn’t happen until much later, she said. Part of their struggle was “finding their voice within that existing community, thinking about HIV in the context of motherhood and not just the potential risk of HIV transmission to their children.”

Watkins-Hayes said there was a reluctance among women to be out in front of the movement because some had children. Women were worried about the stigma of the disease and whether or not the foster care system would take their children away or if they’d be able to stay in school.

Racial disparities among HIV/AIDS diagnoses have also been persistent.

Though African Americans make up about 12% of the U.S. population, the disease still disproportionately impacts them. According to “Remaking a Life,” among all women with HIV diagnoses in 2015, 61% were African American, 19% were white and 15% were Latino. In 2015, HIV/AIDS was the fourth leading cause of death among black women aged 35 to 44.

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Working in partnership with its newest physician, Dr. Barbara Kilian, Mendocino Coast Clinics (MCC) is starting a new service called “Open Door” to reach out to the LGBTQ and sex positive community. Dr. Kilian is spearheading the effort, which will open starting one day a week in July.

“Many people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and sex positive community face discrimination in many areas of their lives, including healthcare,” she said. Sex positive is a term used to describe a tolerant or progressive attitude towards sex and sexuality, one that does not discriminate against non-traditional relationships and behaviors such as open relationships, kink, fetishes, and erotic practices or role-playing involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism. Also, some people are asexual.

Dr. Kilian explained that people in these minority groups (LGBTQ/sex positive/asexual) who need healthcare are in an even more vulnerable position than most people who need healthcare because they fear they will be judged or face prejudice. When people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed in a healthcare setting, they may not be forthcoming about their symptoms or concerns; some choose to forego care altogether to avoid this situation.

“This is especially dangerous for LGBTQ teens who have a higher-than-average suicide rate,” Dr. Kilian said. “And I know trans people who say they would rather die—literally—than go to a hospital emergency department and be treated as ‘less than.’” She says all people deserve a safe place to receive healthcare, and she intends to create just such a place on the Mendocino Coast.

Open Door @ MCC will be centered around sexual health, but it will also be a place where people in LGBTQ and sex positive people can come to be referred for other types of medical and behavioral health care. “We’ll be a safe place to start and either we’ll be equipped to provide the care directly or we’ll refer patients to providers who have been vetted, who we know are welcoming and well-versed in LGBTQ and sex positive issues,” she said. For example, Dr. Kilian plans to offer the initial screening for gender reassignment surgery. If patients decide to pursue surgery, Dr. Kilian will refer them to a transgender-friendly doctor. If a teen patient comes in and needs gynecological care, Dr. Kilian will work with Blue Door @ MCC to make sure the teen feels safe and comfortable with their medical provider.

Before moving to Fort Bragg, Dr. Kilian worked as an emergency room doctor and ran a small sex positive practice in San Francisco. Open Door @ MCC will begin seeing patients one day a week beginning in July and will expand its hours as the demand for services grows. For more information, call (707) 964-1251 and ask for Dr. Kilian.

MCC is a local, non-profit, federally qualified health center offering medical, dental and behavioral health care to people in the coastal communities of Mendocino County.

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