A Mother Goddess for Non-Binary Identities
Discovering Bahuchara Mata, Hindu patron of non-binary identities
I’m an angry baby gay. Angry that a rich and varied queer history has been hidden from me.
A rigid, puritanical approach to gender and sexuality is not innate, but learned. Humans have been queer and gender-fluid for millennia. To claim that non-binary approaches to gender identity are a purely modern phenomenon is to deny the lived experience of real humans.
We have always been like this.
I recently found myself exploring the extraordinary social history of the hijra of the Indian subcontinent. A protected Third Gender today in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, they survived despite attempts by the British colonial authorities to eradicate them.
Despite this legal recognition, contemporary hijra face systemic disadvantage on the margins of South Asian society. This is a lasting legacy of the British colonial project, which imposed a rigid Victorian morality regarding sexuality and gender. The colonial project of homogenisation and conformity sought to eradicate a history and lived experience for which there is evidence from about 300 B.C.E. (I write more about this here).
The uneasy acceptance of the hijra is rooted in their connection with Hindu deities. The hijra of Gujarat, a region in western India, are particularly associated with the deity Bahuchara Mata. Bahuchara Mata is an incarnation of the Mother Goddess who behaves in a way which transgresses the performance of gender.
One striking episode has Bahuchara Mata cutting off her breasts to avoid unwanted sexual contact when a group she is travelling with is set upon by male thieves. This act results in her death and deification.
She is depicted astride a giant rooster armed with a trident and sword. Tales relating to her involve men voluntarily or involuntarily eschewing masculine behaviour and dress in order to receive her favour or appease her. Those who displease her are often subject to forced castration. Another tale has her in a more benign mood, transforming a female into a male to secure a family lineage, in a parallel with the Greek tale of Iphis and Ianthe.
Bahuchara Mata is a Goddess, but unlike the virtuous feminine figure familiar to Christianity, she is subject to fits of rage, impulsivity and emotion. She removes her femininity in order to maintain her bodily autonomy, choosing death over defilement. She rides a giant cock brandishing the sword with which she removed her own breasts. She forces men to adopt female clothing and worship her.
I’m not qualified to offer an analysis of this Goddess and the stories surrounding her. But I am a story-teller and truth seeker, a non-binary queer person looking for examples of people like me throughout history.
For me, Bahuchara Mata and her worship show that non-binary approaches to gender identity are not a modern phenomenon. We have always been like this. To deny that, is to deny the lived experience of humans for millennia.
