Perspectives

4.

"Look at him"," Is that person a girl or a guy?" I have always heard these statements when I am around people. I don't blame them because I know I don't look like them. Many of them don't know who I am or understand why I am the way I am. 

I knew the life I was choosing would be tough when I made the decision to have a sex change operation at the age of twenty. I had always known that I wasn't comfortable in my body. I wasn't like the other guys around me. Growing up, there were so many instances where my body felt like it belonged to someone else. I tried to fight it, tried to convince myself that this was just a part of growing up and trying to find who you are, but I was lying to myself.

Then one day, I decided I couldn't take it anymore. It had to stop. I had to take ownership of my body and how I felt about it. So I spoke to my parents when I was seventeen. Apparently, they knew. They always had known, they had just wanted me to realise it myself. I told them I wanted to be who I truly am and so I had to have a sex change operation to be happy. Although they supported my decision, I wanted to pay for the operation myself.  At least once in my life, I needed to be in charge of my happiness. So I took up odd jobs, anything that would pay me money. I sold the paintings I made, washed cars,  worked at a call centre and such.

Finally, when I had saved up enough, I decided to go for the operation. I still remember the day of my operation like it was yesterday. I had cried, had bawled my eyes out while looking at my body one last time. The body that I had been trapped in all these years. The body from which I would finally be free. The operation took a lot of time.  It was difficult, but what was more difficult was dealing with the aftermath.

The operation made my body weak. I was a totally different person now. It took me months to recover from all of the changes they had made to my body. However, I was happy. This body gave me the comfort I lacked in the previous one. It allowed me to be who I truly was. It felt liberating, in a manner.

However, I admit that there are times where I wonder if I made the right choice. Our society is one where we've been taught to shun anything that is different. I had to face such a society. I had to face its harsh remarks and all the judgements it passed, and not let all of that affect me. I have been doing that for the past five years now, trying to convince people that I am a human being too, though it gets taxing sometimes.

When the Indian supreme court decriminalised section 377, we celebrated. We now had the right to be who we are and not be shamed for it. The next day I boarded the local train in high spirits wearing my favourite saree. I was elated. I tried to find a seat and a girl wearing a school uniform offered me the seat next to her. That's when I heard the lady beside her say "Don't talk to these people. Don't you know who they are?"

That statement came as a reality check. Of course, nothing had really changed. People still believed we weren't worthy of being treated as humans. The girl just smiled at the woman and said: " Mom instead of being mean, shouldn't you congratulate her?"  The lady didn't, of course, but I felt a jolt of happiness go through me. This girl, who didn't even know me was willing to stand up for me. She was willing to believe in me as a person, believe in us as a community. It would take years, but, I hoped that, eventually everyone would be as accepting as her. That would be when I knew that we had won.

-Student, NM College