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Issue 2, 2009
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Shades of Grey
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Conceiving Sexual Agency
Contemporary Bangladesh presents a rather paradoxical
situation in terms of non-normative genders and sexualities.
For example, historically there have been at least two
publicly visible sexual/gender subcultures of putatively
effeminate males desiring macho males namely Hijra and
Kothi. Moreover owing to rampant homosociality (the fact
of two same gendered persons’ being in intimate relation
is not generally accorded any homoerotic connotations)
a wide range of linguistically unmarked and culturally
unrecognized same sex sexualities have also been existent.
Alongside these, transnational gay ‘underground’ groups
also emerged from 2000 onwards. Yet same sex sexualities
remain criminalized though socio-legal persecution is
rare.
Against this backdrop I attempt to highlight the complex
intermingling of factors like ‘homophobia’, class, Islam,
emergent rights activism and political economy in the
production of contested sexual agency.
Is there any homophobia in Bangladesh?
Hijra a cultic sub-culture of lower class nonnormative ‘males’
with extensive community rules and rituals is publicly
institutionalized. Hijras are often seen to stroll through the
hectic streets of Dhaka in groups. Kothi another subculture
of nonnormative ‘males’ but less conspicuous than the hijras
subvert socially imposed masculinity in specific spaces like
the cruising gardens and then vanish into the mainstream
macho society as normative males.
There is also a subculture of kothi
known as the ‘gamchali’(Gamcha is a
patch of woven cloth used to wipe
the face and hands. Gamchali kothis
are so called as they wear gamcha
across their chest) kothis who work
as cooks in the construction sites in
urban spaces. Owing to a great deal
of inter-community migration and
overlapping communitarian traits
these groups are hard to distinguish.
Nevertheless a few commonalities
that bind these groups are their
shared resistance to normative
masculinity and the desiring of the
‘macho’ males. To the wider society
however all these groups are just
hijras a word often invoked by all
and sundry to refer to any one ‘not
man enough’.
In Bangladesh ‘transgenderism’ is not conflated with any
form of homoeroticism in the popular imaginary. Thus the
hijra/kothis1 are often read as asexual/impotent people
without any genitalia. The fact that hijras have sex with
‘men’ does not occur to the majority mainstream. Hijras
too reinforce this image of their asexuality and claim to
have been born like that though a majority of the hijras are
non-emasculated or what the hijras
call ‘Janana’. So are the gamchali and
garden kothis. Nevertheless I am
keen on reading this institutionalised
presence as an instance of
‘acceptance’ engendered by a lack
of knowledge in the wider society
about hijra/kothi non-normative
sexuality.
Gay groups emerged in Bangladesh
from 2000 onwards among the
middle/upper class males. Many
of these groups have increasingly
started to use public spaces for
rendezvous though without much
publicity. Moreover, at least half a
dozen NGOs are currently working
with the MSM (men who have sex
with men) across Bangladesh.
To the best of my knowledge there has not been any
organised onslaught on the hijra/kothi or gay men2. Nor
has there been any threat from the Islamic pockets or the
government. In fact Bangladeshi society is not segregated
based on a concept of sexual preference. There is no used
word in Bengali for ‘straight’. Nor is there any widely
used currency for homosexual. There is also a lack of
public discourse on homosexuality. Even the fact that
homosexuality stands criminalized is largely unknown3.
This is however not to suggest that same sex sexualities and
marginal gender identities are celebrated in Bangladesh.
Rather in the context of Bangladesh what is evident is an
overarching heterosexuality. Heterosexuality considered
the morally superior and natural category of sexuality has
never allowed non-normative desire to rise to the status of
a legitimate sexuality. Therefore fear of same sex desire or
‘homophobia’ could not gain adequate conceptual depth.
Recent scholarship has driven home the limitation of the
concept of homophobia as a universal signifier to refer to the
oppression of same sex sexuality. For instance Bryant and
Vidal-Ortiz (2008)4 argue that the uncritical deployment
of homophobia tends to impose preconceived judgments
foreclosing attention to multiple axes of power through
which oppression is systematised. This is particularly
significant for a socio-cultural
context like Bangladesh where not
only the concept of western-style
homophobia is absent but also there
is no overt persecution of people
based on sexual orientation. In fact
the nature of ‘heteronormativity’ in
Bangladeshi society is such that it not
only grants space for unrestrained
same gender interaction but also
encourages same gender sociality as
opposed to heterogendered ones. As
a result same gendered persons are
often seen to walk with their hands
tied to each other without provoking
any cultural anxiety. Two men living
in the same house for years also
do not instigate the wider society
to even remotely conflate it with
any form of same sex eroticisms.
This is however not to argue
that ‘queerness’ is entrenched in
Bangladeshi social structure. Rather
the extent to which homosociality
enables or restrains homoeroticism
is still subject to research.
Against this backcloth I argue against the uncritical
transposition of ‘western-fabricated’ homophobia onto
the Bangladeshi social context where the socio-cultural
configuration is far more complicated with ‘homophobia’
never taking the overt form of physical violence but
manifesting through a multiplicity of vectors of power like
class and religion that are often in operation in consolidating
regimes of oppression.
‘Lower class people are more accepting than the
upper class’
Production of sexual subjectivity is complexly mediated
through class. The publicly visible hijra and kothi generally
emerge from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Their
acceptance is also higher among the lower class. For
example hijras/kothis live in the poor neighbourhoods in
urban Dhaka alongside the normative population. Though
there is generally a lack of knowledge
about hijra/kothi sexuality, hijra/
kothi marriage with normative
men are routine practices in such
neighbourhoods.
In the last six months I attended at
least ten such marriage5 ceremonies
where non-community neighbors
were present as guests. Based on
my fieldwork, I can argue that
there is generally a greater degree
of acceptance, not just tolerance
among the lower class of nonnormative
‘men’. On the other hand,
in the middle/upper class when
such marriages/engagements take
place it is always very surreptitious
with mostly gay-identified men
participating in such events. One
reason I can only provisionally
offer for this is that middle/upper
class men grow up with a sense of
‘classed social respectability’ that
they find difficult to disrupt. Thus
class privilege instead of being a
boon becomes a burden for the
majority of middle/upper class
same sex attracted men in urban
Bangladesh.
Hijra/kothis often fret that middle/
upper class society rarely accept
them though men from these classes
often buy sex from the hijra/kothi.
In fact in the popular imagination of
the middle and upper class (including
the gay-identified section) hijra/
kothis are ‘foul-smelling’, ‘dirty’,
‘violent’, ‘shameless’ people. Thus
it is the lower class status with its
associated imageries of ‘foul smell’
and ‘filth’ through which hijra/
kothis are discursively produced as
the abjected others.
Thus the paradox is that while the
lower socio-economic status grants
the non-normative ‘men’ relative
freedom/agency to come out and
celebrate sexuality /gender nonconformity, it is highly
likely that the same groups of men might not be able
to do the same when they move up the socio-economic
ladder. Class therefore can be both empowering as well
as disempowering in terms of how sexual agency is
exercised.
Islam and same sex sexuality: A strange
bedfellow?
Let me share the story of a hijra friend who I will call Sonia
for the purposes of this article. Sonia now in heris6 late
40s underwent emasculation ten years back. Recently s/he
performed the hajj pilgrimage. After returning from hajj
Sonia has been working with the local mosque in Dhaka as
a volunteer in weekly Islamic preaching and moves from
door to door with other ‘musolli’ to preach Islam. Sonia
also supervises a hijra group in the same area. The mosque
committee and the locals are aware of heris being a hijra.
Sonia’s ‘hijrahood’ has never stood as a roadblock to heris
acceptance into the normative
social spaces. Examples attesting
to such compatible juxtaposition of
Islam with hijra/kothis are abundant
in contemporary Bangladesh. Hijra/
kothis openly cross-dress and roam
around in public spaces. Many of
my hijra/kothi interlocutors live in
buildings where madrasas (Islamic
religious schools) are lodged without
any conflict. In the Internet message
boards used by the gay groups I have
never seen a single reporting of any
attack by the Islamists. To the best
of my knowledge there has not been
any documented case of Islamic
persecution of hijra/kothi or gay
people.
This is however not to suggest
that the dominant Islamic/official
establishments approve of same sex
sexuality or cross-dressing practices.
Rather my precise point is that
Islam, at least the practised version of it, does not seem
to be incommensurate with non-normative sexualities and
gender identities in contemporary Bangladesh.
In a recent article Long (2009)7 details out the prurient
exuberance of western press and advocacy organizations
about homosexual persecution in Iran. Long, an LGBT
human rights activist, takes several alleged cases of
persecution on board and demonstrates how these cases
have been tempered with erroneous facts and circulated
as judgments in the guise of facts. Interestingly, in the last
one year, in one of the message boards of a gay group in
Bangladesh several emails have been posted by foreign
lawyers asking for evidence of persecution of gays in
the hands of Islamists to buttress cases of Bangladeshi
homosexuals seeking asylum abroad. Such claims have
always been thrown overboard by the gay members as
downright falsehoods. Such messages in fact point up the
problematic orientalist ascription of prejudged homophobia
to Muslim societies like Bangladesh.
The paradox of sexual rights
International advocacy and human
rights organizations like ILGA and
many others periodically bring
out reports with countries like
Bangladesh and India marked out
as ‘homophobic’ on the ground of
penal code section 377. Interestingly
in the history of Bangladesh Sec
377 has rarely been used against
the same sex attracted individuals8.
NGOs catering to the sexual health
needs of the so called ‘MSM’ would
not have been able to operate for
more than a decade had this law
been in use.
So why bring up Sec 377 all of
a sudden? A few NGO-based
interlocutors recently brought
to my attention that Sec 377 is
increasingly figuring as an agenda
now that that there is this new trend
to fund rights as opposed to HIV and
AIDS work. So while I acknowledge
the undesirability of Sec 377 I argue
that abrupt activism around its
repeal is highly likely to give rise
to an unprecedented ‘homophobia’
and consequent social segregation
based on the homo/hetero binary
with the added disadvantage of legal
persecution under Sec 377. Perhaps
more than anything else the nascent
rights activists need to take this paradox into account
before moves towards the repeal of Sec 377 are made.
Political economy of sexual agency
Western-style queer politics has in recent times become
the ultimate yardstick to measure sexual agency of the
non-western others though ironically anti-sodomy laws
were mostly colonial introductions. I draw attention in
this section to the role of global
political economy in upholding
western recognition-based queer
politics as the desideratum. This is
however not to suggest that ‘queer
globalism’ is a one way traffic or
culture is bound in space and time
but my precise point is the degree
to which cultural interpenetration
occurs is still uneven with the
standpoints of the economically
wealthy often becoming hegemonic.
Thus a particular/western way
of being ‘queer’ becomes agential
(LGBT visibility politics and its
battle for civil rights) while any
deviations from it are deemed as
‘defective’ (hijra, kothi). And it is
this hegemonic ‘homonormativity’
that needs to be challenged. I am
not suggesting that gay is foreign and
a threat to the hijra, kothi. Rather,
gay in contemporary Bangladesh is
very much reconfigured and can coexist
alongside the hijra, kothi and
other non-identity-based male to
male sexualities. But to assume that
hijra/kothi and other non-identity based
male to male homoeroticisms
are less political than the gay is
problematic.
In Bangladesh however it is not
gay but ‘MSM’ that has become an
accepted way of articulating male
same sex sexuality in the policy domain. Though originally
intended as a way to capture non-identity-based male to
male sexuality ‘MSM’ in recent times has become a sort
of an identity. Many of the non-normative men including
the hijra/kothi-identified in contemporary Bangladesh
identify and are identified as ‘MSM’. Expressions like ‘I am
an MSM’ or ‘Look at those MSMs coming’ have become
routine. Concealed in this seemingly innocuous moniker is
a deeper politics of representational effacement/violence
enacted through both scholarship and activism9. It is as if
Bangladeshi male to male sexualities have never been able
to rise to the status of identity. A few academic friends in a
recent workshop argued that if people embrace ‘MSM’ as
an identity why that would be a problem. This in fact raises
important questions about agency/structure. Thus we need
to keep in mind the reasons for why people do what they
do and under what conditions and to what extent what they
do is regulated by the political economy of development
intervention over which they have no direct control.
Conclusion
In much of contemporary sexuality studies and activism
there is a tendency to consider ‘desire’ as unregulated and
autonomous. It is as if desire springs up in a vacuum and
erotic justice can be therefore sought outside the broader
combat for socio-political justice. I do not however indicate
that individual sexual subjects are solely determined by
international division of labor with individuals as passive
victims as Marxian monists might contend. Rather my
precise point is sexual agency is multiply inflected and is
not reducible to one single variable like law, religion or
class but is to be understood as a corollary of complex
translocal processes where a plethora of factors like culture
and political economy intersect to simultaneously bring
into being and erase sexual agency.
1 Despite the differences between the hijra and kothi I use
‘hijra/kothi’ interchangeably throughout this paper as
kothi based on my fieldwork emerges as a hijra clandestine
argot used to refer to effeminate males. Thus, as many
of my hijra/kothi-identified informants suggest, all
hijras are kothis but all kothis are not hijras. But at the
same time kothis can become hijras as much as hijras can
become kothis depending on the social space in which one
operates.
2 This is not to suggest that there is no violence. But based
on my fieldwork in the last 8 months and previous 10 years
of informal involvement with these communities I can say
violence is not rampant.
3 In several meetings with the law enforcers in the last 6
months through the NGOs this became evident that the
police are not aware of 377. Rather it is always under
section 54 of CRPC that police detain and harass the
kothis/hijra sex workers. Section 54 allows the police to
arrest anyone on the ground of suspicion.
4 Bryant and Vidal-Ortiz. 2008. Introduction to Retheorizing
Homophobias. Sexualities Vol.11(4):387-396
Sage Publication, Los Angeles.
5 While non-normative marriage is illegal in Bangladesh,
hijra, kothi and gay men refer to such pair-bonding as
marriage.
6 Though pronoun in Bengali is uninflected by gender I use
‘heris’ (I juxtapose ‘er’ from ‘Her’ with ‘is’ from ‘His’ with
the prefix ‘H’) not only to destabilize the notion of gender
as a natural category but also to highlight Sonia’s gender
transitive behaviors.
7 Scott Long. 2009. Unbearable Witness: How Western
Activists (Mis)Recognize Sexuality in Iran. Contemporary
Politics Vol. 15, (1):119-136. Routledge, London
8 To the best of my knowledge there was only one case in
history fought in the court under this section.
9 In many academic research and NGO reports on
Bangladesh male to male sexuality is often framed through
the lens of ‘MSM’. A recent NGO publication is titled ‘Let
us Ensure the Rights of the MSM’ and throughout there is
no explanation of what MSM even stands for.
Adnan Hossain currently a PhD student in Social
Anthropology in the University of Hull, UK has been working
on gender and sexual diversity in Bangladesh for about a
decade now. Recently he has contributed an entry on
Bangladesh for The Greenwood Encyclopedia of LGBT Issues
Worldwide (forthcoming). He also worked on the production
of the civil society report on LGBTI rights in Bangladesh for
the 4th round of the UPR for the UN Human Rights Council.
He can be reached at hossainadnan@rocketmail.com
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