Ageing While Trans* in India: Ethnographic Notes from West Bengal, India

• In Event: 20464 - Queer of Color Critique and Sociology

Abstract

Queer of Color Critique (QCC), as a set of heterogenous theoretical and methodological approaches, has offered powerful tools to challenge normative conceptions of gender and sexuality by contextualizing them within on-going transnational processes of colonialism and racial capitalism. Rooted in post-colonial feminism, Black feminism, and Queer theory, QCC is uniquely positioned to offer insights into how the lives of LGBTQI+ elders in India are being shaped by forces of globalization and transforming legal regimes that govern gender and sexuality. Thus, this article examines how trans* individuals negotiate aging in West Bengal, India in the context of a shrinking welfare state and rising Hindu authoritarianism.

This article draws on ethnographic data and twenty semi-structured interviews with trans* individuals over the age of 50, including Kothis, Hijras, and trans*masculine individuals in Kolkata and three peri-urban districts in West Bengal, India. This research builds on my previous ethnographic work with trans* sex workers and activists in India in the aftermath of the 2014 legal recognition of the Third Gender Category from 2016 to 2018 and 2021 to 2024 that revealed the possibilities and appeals of the law as the primary site of social justice advocacy. By centering the lives of trans* elders, I show how trans* elders are variably positioned in alignment with and in opposition to assimilationist frameworks for development and gender justice. By applying a QCC lens to a Global South context, this research makes contributions to both to sociology of gender & sexuality and critical development studies, making the case for further research utilizing this approach.

Author

• Diya Bose, William & Mary