At the Intersections of Caste and Gender
Siddhesh Gautam/TheLifeofScience.com
The killing of George Floyd saw the outpouring of people on streets all over the world protesting against racism and in support of the Black Lives Matter campaign. One of the important highlights of this campaign was the Black Trans Lives Matter march which identified the way black trans persons have been discriminated against, silenced, abused, and killed in the United States. The Black Trans Lives Matter marches sought to emphasize the disproportionate violence and discrimination experienced by transgender persons of colour and to celebrate activists working to advance transgender equality.
In India, from within the vibrant trans rights movement, there have been important voices raising concerns about the discrimination faced by Dalit and Adivasi trans persons. I wish to explore this this intersection of caste and gender in this piece and to highlight the urgent need for us as activists to be intersectional in our work.
The idea of multiple and compound discrimination and inequality is most often ascribed to Black feminist activists in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term “intersectionality” was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who noted the limitations of anti-discrimination law in the US in addressing the experience of black women. Scholars and activists argued that the experiences of those at the intersections of a marginalized racial identity (i.e., black) and sex (i.e., women) were more likely to be neglected, not only by the state and law but also by social movements. Social researchers from various disciplines have since noted the importance of an intersectional approach in understanding the inequality, injustice, and discrimination faced by marginalized communities on different axes, such as disability or race, across the world. Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1991 piece titled ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Colour’ argued that identity politics frequently conflates or ignores intragroup differences and that black women face unique and aggravated forms of discrimination. They did not face marginalization, discrimination, or violence because of their race or sex, but because of the intersections of both race and sex. As Sandra Fredman further explains, “the aim of intersectionality should be to capture and address the wrongs suffered by those who are at the confluence of all of these multiple identities and relationships,” and she argues that “structural intersectionality” is a more useful approach as it focuses on “(i) the need to redress disadvantage, (ii) the need to address stigma, stereotyping, prejudice, and violence, (iii) the need to facilitate voice and participation, and (iv) the need to accommodate difference and change structures of discrimination.”
In the Indian context, we have strong voices from the Dalit trans community raising demands for equality and equal opportunities. Dalit transgender people find themselves at the intersection of their caste identities and their diverse notions of gender, and often face entrenched discrimination and stigma on both these accounts. Grace Banu, one of India’s foremost Dalit trans activists, has been raising the issue of the invisibility of the Dalit transgender community. She argues that the trans movement needs to challenge cis-brahminical patriarchy and fight for rights in a world that is largely divided by caste and gender binaries. As the founder and director of Trans Rights Now Collective (a Dalit-, Bahujan-, and Adivasi-centred collective of trans folx working towards greater trans visibility and opportunity in education, the workplace and politics), she has been at the forefront of India’s trans rights movement.
This intersection is not recognized by the movements because as Gee Semmalar points out, there is a lack of solidarity between Dalit and transgender communities where transgender persons are often found fighting for survival from public violence. Those at the interstices of caste and gender identity tend to have fewer avenues for social support. Dalit transgender persons are subject to acute discrimination from upper caste transgender persons owing to their caste-status and from the Dalit community due to their gender identity. Living Smile Vidhya argues that transphobia is structurally similar to the way in which caste hierarchies work and argues that Dalit transgender women need to fight the ways in which transphobia, patriarchy, and casteism adversely affect their life choices and opportunities. In this regard, she also observes that the transgender community has been “reduced to the status of just beggars or sex workers” and draws a parallel with the “occupational fixity” of Dalits. Transgender persons fight for their rights and survival in a society that is organised along patriarchal and caste binaries. Banu links this intersectional discrimination to a brahminical patriarchal order which views sex work and begging as taboo rather than as a form of labour and to the notions of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’ which surround the idea of morality in India to disadvantage Dalit transgender persons.
At the Centre for Law and Policy Research, we conducted a year-long study on the experience of intersectionality. Our report showed that Dalit transgender persons faced the most amount of violence in school and were especially vulnerable to sexual violence at work with 33% reporting sexual assault and harassment at work. Dalit transgender persons also faced harassment in their interactions with police officials: 23% of Dalit transgender persons were forcibly denuded or stripped by the police and 19% were sexually assaulted when they approached the police seeking assistance. Dalit transgender persons faced the most barriers to access in public transport and public spaces like parks (50%), police stations (46%) and Government hospitals (43%). 56% of Dalit transgender respondents were forced to engage in sexual activity to access shelter, food or gain employment.
The challenge therefore in our lives as activists, lawyers, researchers, or civil society members engaging in social justice movements is to recognize the aggravated discrimination that persons at the intersections of race, caste, and gender identity experience. Only when we are able to embrace the fact that the inequalities faced by people are multi-dimensional will we be able to work towards true equality for all.
Jayna Kothari is a Senior Advocate practicing in the Supreme Court of India and Executive Director, Centre for Law & Policy Research.
(c) 2020 Jayna Kothari