How Britain tried to 'erase' India's third genderComments
sadie_killer wrote
wow, you weren't joking. i didn't think i would be particularly affected by the term, but that was relentless, i couldn't even get very far into the article.
i don't know much about traditional third genders, but checking wikipedia shows that while a very technical, insensitive read of the definition applies more than i expected, it also says:
In a series of meetings convened between October 2013 and Jan 2014 by the transgender experts committee of India's Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, hijra and other trans activists asked that the term "eunuch" be discontinued from usage in government documents, as it is not a term with which the communities identify.
anyway, in my opinion this is standard practice for the bbc. they're providing information that reflects negatively on the british empire, so they have to make sure they reproduce any harm that may otherwise be slightly reduced through the acknowledgement of the past.
i don't know if finishing the article would change my assessment, but i doubt it.
masque wrote (edited )
The quoted Dr. Hinchy seems to use both terms at times, and she mentions that the law "was used to police a diverse range of gender non-confirming people," so perhaps she was making a distinction between "eunuchs" as defined by law vs. hijra as a specific group. But even if Dr. Hinchy is making such a distinction, it's not clarified anywhere in the article and the author of the article doesn't seem to care.
masque wrote (edited )
Is it just me, or is it weird that the article repeatedly uses the broad term "eunuch" despite referring to a specific cultural category/context where a more specific term (hijra) exists?