Gendered Bodies: The Case of the `Third Gender' in India

Abstract

This essay is concerned with issues arising out of an intersection of several academic debates which have followed more or less independent trajectories in the past, but have now begun to be seen in relation with each other. I attempt a parallel examination of the debates around the sex-gender distinction, the anthropologists' discovery of multiple gender systems, and the gendered dimensions of colonialism in the Indian context. One of the common grounds for these debates is the hijra community of India. I concentrate here on the colonial and anthropological accounts of this community in order to arrive at a meaningful understanding of gender.