Social Acceptance and Section 377: A Case Study of Transgender People in Jammu City

Parul Priya,Anurag Kumar

doi:10.2478/genst-2021-0008

Abstract

Abstract The Supreme Court of India recently decriminalized section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to outlaw the unfair violence and discrimination against transgender people. The paper argues that despite the legal acceptance of Section 377, the discrimination and social exclusion of transgender people continue in the Indian public sphere. The method of Interpretative Phenomenological Approach has been used to analyze the interviews of five transgender people from Jammu city. The findings suggest patterns and relationships within the data which are useful for understanding various ways in which transgender people negotiate and contemplate their lives outside the known social network they resort to. By analyzing the interpretations of selected transgender people, the study reveals that they bear the brunt of social and economic exclusion due to their gender identity on day-to-day basis.

Highlights

The term transgender “doesn’t just refer to people who have had or want a sex-change operation to make their bodies match their internal feelings [...] it applies to many different kinds of people who don’t fit neatly into society’s binary concept of gender” (Thompson, 2015, p. 7)
The research argues that the favourable legal discourse on transgender people has been introduced into the public sphere, they still face a major thrust of discrimination on a daily basis, and, the goal of the research is to explore the social experience of transgender people in Jammu city after the decriminalization of Section 377, which could lead to the authentic portrayal of transgender specific problems
The findings suggest that the transgender people interviewed suffer collective deprivation and ostracism in the public sphere due to their gender identity

Summary

Introduction

The term transgender “doesn’t just refer to people who have had or want a sex-change operation to make their bodies match their internal feelings [...] it applies to many different kinds of people who don’t fit neatly into society’s binary concept of gender” (Thompson, 2015, p. 7). In other words, “[t]ransgender is an umbrella term [...] that include[s] people whose lifestyles appear to conflict with the gender norms of society” It is used to describe “Gender Variant people who have gender identities, expressions or behaviors not traditionally associated with their birth sex” (“Gender Variance,” 2001, available online). Melendez and Pinto define transgender as “individuals whose sexual assignment at birth does not correspond with their current gender identity” Davidson explains that transgender “refers to people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth” Transgender, as used in the current study, refers to all those people whose gender identity does not conform to the norms of heterosexuality which sees gender and sex as interrelated and complementary

Objectives

Results

Conclusion