A history of queerness in India

Queer allies and activists speak very highly of traditional Indian concepts such as hijra and tritīya prakṛti. Here we scrutinise how these concepts compare to the modern understanding of queerness.

Part II: A comparison of vocabulary

Scientists and Queer theorists currently recognise at least five distinct traits related to sex, gender and desire. They are:

• Assigned sex: may be assigned at birth based on genital physiology or may be changed via hormonal and/or surgical sex reassignment
  Typical Phenotypes: male, female, intersex
  Associated terminology: Transitioning — the process of hormonal/surgical sex reassignment
• Gender identity: the gender that a person identifies as
  Typical Phenotypes: male, female, non-binary, gender-fluid, agender
  Associated terminology: Cisgendered — when assigned sex matches gender identity; Transgendered — when assigned sex does not match gender identity. Note that a Transgender woman identifies as a woman, and a transgender man identifies as a man. Transgender non-binary persons also exist.
• Gender presentation/expression: the gender that a person presents as (not to be confused with gender roles, which are socio-cultural rules/expectations regarding the function of people in a community)
  Typical Phenotypes: macho/butch, femme, androgynous, agender
  Associated terminology: Transvestite — when a person presents as a gender other than assigned sex or gender identity
• Romantic orientation: the level of romantic attraction a person has to other people and the gender of the persons whom they feel romantically attracted to
  Typical Level Phenotypes: Alloromantic, Demiromantic, Aromantic
  Typical Orientation Phenotypes : Heteroromantic, Homoromantic, Biromantic, Panromantic
• Sexual orientation: the level of sexual attraction a person has to other people and the gender of the persons whom they feel sexually attracted to
  Typical Level Phenotypes: Allosexual, Demisexual, Asexual
  Typical Orientation Phenotypes : Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual, Pansexual

All these traits are expressed independently of each other. And all of these traits are found in a continuous spectrum. Other traits may come to surface with the progress of research.

However, just like all chemical elements are possible but not equally abundant in nature, so too, all gender and sexual configurations are not equally common in human populations. Most human beings are cisgendered, identify sharply as either male or female, present as their assigned sex/identified gender, and are alloromantic, heteroromantic, allosexual and heterosexual.

[Note: Future research may prove otherwise, especially as local and global stigma dies out. e.g. already it is claimed that the majority of human beings are biromantic and bisexual]

Historically speaking anybody who expressed any of these five traits differently from the majority were classified as sexual deviants and/or gender non-conforming.

The English word queer, which originally meant ‘strange’ or ‘unwell’, was applied to these people as a slur. Over time, by dint of activism and scholarship, the term was reclaimed.

However this term was both historically and presently non-specific. That is to say the cisgendered femme homoromantic homosexual woman (aka a vanilla lesbian) can identify as queer, but so can a femme gender fluid panromantic asexual intersex person.

Indeed the word queer is included in the acronym LGBTQA+ or QUILTBAG primarily for the benefit of persons with complicated and/or ambiguous gender and sexual orientation.

Thus far we’ve seen the modern academic vocabulary, now let’s come to the ancient Indic one.

Assigned sex:

• Apart from Male and Female, Intersex persons were recognised as ubhayavyañjana, meaning ‘having both male and female organs’ and nastrīpuṃsa or nastrīpuṃsaka, meaning ‘neither man nor woman’.
• Surgical sex reassignment was completely unheard of. However both mutilation of male genitals and female breasts have been mentioned as a form of punishment. Men who were surgically castrated i.e. eunuchs, were known as ṣaṇḍha (the word is also a verb meaning to castrate).

Gender identity:

• Gender identity and gender presentation were considered indistinguishable from assigned sex. Therefore true transgenderism by itself was not recognised.
• Transgender men (those Assigned Female At Birth) suffered complete erasure.

Gender presentation:

• The presence of butch/masculine presenting women, either cis or transgender is not recognised in the Indian historical record. (Women bearing weapons were not examples of butchness — not now, not ever)
• Femme/feminine presenting men, both cis and transgender, were lumped under a category called klība, meaning ‘unmanly’

Romantic orientation:

• Romantic and Sexual attraction were not distinguished. Romantic orientation was not recognised. However the notions of platonic love (non-romantic) and courtly love (romantic but celibate) are well-attested as sakhā bhāva and niskāma prema respectively.

Sexual orientation:

• The kāmasutra, smṛti literature, dharmashashtras and erotic temple sculptures depict homosexual practices but not homosexual orientation.
• The basic idea of sexual orientation i.e. that a person is permanently predisposed to be attracted to persons of one or more particular gender — is not recognised by most Indians — either ancient or modern.
• Gender roles were conceived of as being a rigid and clearly defined binary and also included sexual roles — this what purusha and stri prakṛti referred to. All visible deviants from the binary were recognised as tritīya prakṛti, i.e. the so-called third gender, by Caraka and others. In the kāmasutra, this category also included perfectly cisgender heterosexual people who preferred the use of sex toys and non PIV sex.
• Only femme/feminine presenting gay men were recognised under the category of klība. Buddhist Vinaya literature uses the Sanskrit and Pali category paṇḍaka in a similar fashion.
• The terms tritīya prakṛti, klība and paṇḍaka can be perfectly understood as analogues of the Arabic term khawal, as described by Dmitris Almyrantis in his answer:

To understand mediaeval attitudes towards homosexuality, we need to stop thinking of the idea of straight/homo, because this was definitely not how people in past eras (and indeed, often people today) thought of it.

The idea was that during sex, someone was active (penetrating) or passive (being penetrated). It was universally acceptable for men to engage in active sex without a trace of scorn: but it could be stigmatising to be penetrated. Men who engaged in passive sex were known as khawwal, a “third gender” which fit neither into the male nor the female gender role. They dressed like women, put on feminine clothes and were accepted in society as khawwal: but they were not “reputable men” in any shape or form because of their effeminacy.

• There was no such thing as a lesbian or a non-femme gay man in the Indian psyche — their sexual identity was disregarded, and their activities were deemed an occasional indulgence at best, and at most an unfortunate lifestyle choice.
• Because people were classified as either normal or deviant, bi/pan sexuality was also not recognised.
• Asexual, and demisexual people suffered complete erasure. Especially when it comes to asexuality, it must be noted that recognition of celibacy or monogamy, which are both lifestyle choices, is not in any way a recognition of asexuality and demisexuality, which are sexual orientations.

Mythical categories

• A separate terminology, namely strīpuṃsa meaning ‘he who was both woman and man’ is used specifically for the mythic figure Śikhaṇḍi in the BORI Critical Edition of Mahabharata. This term is the antonym of the abovementioned term nastrīpuṃsa.
• Like Śikhaṇḍi, There are a number of mythical persons who were born and who lived as one gender and were magically changed into another gender such as and Bhangaswa in the Mahabharata, Puranjana in the Bhagavata Purana and the God Visnu himself in multiple Puranas. These characters are not examples of transgenderism because they identified with their assigned sex both before and after their transition. However an argument can be made for them being examples of genderfluid heterosexual people.
• The character Sthūṇākarṇa who gave up his manhood to Śikhaṇḍi however, is consistently identified as male even after his transition, acknowledged merely as strīsvarūpavān — male person in female form. Many examples from later sources, including the Gopesvara form of the God Siva and the strīsvesa tradition in which male deities in temples are dressed in feminine clothing on certain occasions are treated similarly. As such these are not direct examples of any forms of queerness.
• The manifestation of Siva and Parvati as ardhanarisvara is a conjoined form of two separate deities, similar to Harihara, and is not in any way a reference to queer people.
• A number of examples of supernatural male pregnancies occur in Indic mythology. However neither the assigned sex nor the gender identity of the male gestational parent is ever called into question. They are simply considered men. They are also not examples of queerness.

These terminologies were not rigid, and indeed changed over time.

The word nastrīpuṃsaka was shortened to its more well-known form napumsaka, and now included eunuchs, transgender women, intersex as well as genderfluid persons.

Meanwhile in medieval times, klība became neutral, to the extent that it was used to denote the grammatical neuter gender also. Medieval versions of the epics and Puranas changed the nature of some characters e.g. Śikhaṇḍi was now described as a eunuch or impotent male (the original Śikhaṇḍi fathered children), and the word used for him was klība.

Simultaneously, the word napuṃsaka took on the pejorative tone and other meanings of klība, and in modern Indian languages this word is widely used as a slur.

The Hijra community (and similar communities known by different names in different Indian languages) which has been attested in India since early medieval times has included eunuchs, intersex people, femme presenting men (gay, straight and bi/pan) and transgender women. Although the definition of the word napuṃsaka technically includes all these people, we do not in fact find this word actually being used to refer to this community.

In regards to the specific claim that either napuṃsaka or Hijra is an equivalent of the English word queer, this does not stand up to scrutiny.

To demonstrate his claim, Dr Pattanaik quotes a chaupai of the Ramacharita manas, in which “Nar, Napunsak, Nari” are mentioned. However it is amply clear from that context, that it is the gender being referred to, not the sexuality.

Indeed Hijra and napuṃsaka refer only to a specific subset of queer people, and do not include a vast number of queer identities. Hijra and napuṃsaka are miscellaneous terms, whereas queer is an all-inclusive term.

Secondly, it must be remembered that term queer has been largely destigmatised, whereas napumsaka is not. The word Hijra fares marginally better in this regard, due to some level of activism.

Meanwhile new words have been invented in modern India, partly due to the influence of western activists, such as samakami (Bengali) or samalaingik (Hindi) for homosexuals. This process will continue as both language and society work towards progress.

This is Part II of a series of articles on the history of queerness in India.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Appendix I