While The World Is Learning To Accept Transgender Rights, Why Can't It See Them As Human Beings?

The transgender community has received a lot of hostility in the past, as it was seen as unnatural to go against the gender you were born with. But as times have changed, the world has realised that gender is not what we are born with but what we feel in our minds and how we truly express ourselves.

Times Of Israel

Bruce Jenner struggled with his gender identity for several years until recently when he transitioned and came out to the world as Caitlyn in the "Call me Caitlyn" photoshoot by Vanity Fair. Contrary to popular expectation, the media responded with a lot of positivity welcoming her new identity. However, they fell short by objectifying her completely - the size of her boobs, her curves, her long hair, her cheek bones, her plastic surgery, nothing was spared.

It somehow felt like the media was expecting Caitlyn to transition into a man in drag or Bruce Jenner in a wig and dress. But what was most shocking about the whole episode was that in becoming a woman, she was welcomed with the most negative aspect of being a woman.

Unfortunately, Jenner's transition didn't receive the support from the people she needed it the most - other transgender women, who felt that her look was living up to the hype of being a celebrity.

"Trans women are feeling that the sexualized photos are actually a fetishised version of what men believe women should look like. It¡¯s an unattainable stereotype that will have a reverse effect on trans people", said Zoey Tur, a radio talk show host and a corespondent on transgender issues. She reports that several transgender women are having second thoughts about their surgeries as they feel they may not be able to to live up to standards set by Jenner.

wikipedia

Caitlyn went on to receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award after revealing her true self for the first time.

At the other end of the world, the government of West Bengal rejoices at appointing a transgender woman as the principal of a college. Manabi Bandhopadhyay, the lady in question, will now be heading the Krishnanagar Women's College in the Nadia district of West Bengal.

BCCL

A journalist asked her how she felt on her achievement but she nonchalantly replied, "I have lost my ability to feel pleased with professional achievements. When it comes to my personal life, I am glad I am still the same person. But I have been at war for so long, that a professional achievement like this doesn't affect me too much. Yes, people are celebrating it. I don't feel like doing it myself."

Having struggled through two decades of harassment, the road to her achievement hasn't been easy. Labelled a 'girl' while being an effeminate man, people still treat her like a man after she transitioned into a woman. Not just Manabi, but many transgender women in India are asked questions like which toilet they use, and are treated like representatives of the hijra community. Manabi is often asked by curious women in the train why hijras dance, and harass commuters for money. She chooses to calmly answer the questions since this hetero-normative society is taught to treat sexual minorities with suspicion.

"Unless you treat a person as an individual, you are not respecting him or her. It becomes easy to understand sexual minorities if people develop the basic intelligence to treat people as individuals, with peculiar choices and talents," is her basic philosophy to life and understanding different people. The LGBT community is not a homogeneous mass.

BCCL

Often stereotyped in India as beggars, hecklers and sex workers, many transgender women are discriminated against by an ignorant majority that fails to realise the hardships of life they have to endure.

Whether it's expecting transgender people to conform to body image ideals or accepting who they are inside, why can't we just let them be who they are and pursue what they want to be? Whether she's beautiful, whether she's accomplished, whether she was born male, she has the right to be who she is just like you or anybody else.

Respect her as an individual rather than someone who is different or discriminated.

The 101 India Transgender Project created by 101India.com powered by Indiatimes is an attempt to hammer in the idea of transgenders as 'real people', not objects of hostility. A project which for the first time gives an opportunity to the Transgender community to be photographed in roles and jobs that they'd like. Only if society let them.