Shifting gender positions among Hindi-speaking hijras

The hijras occupy a marginalized position in Indian social matrix, as their ambiguous gender identity provokes conflicting feelings of awe and contempt. They must create self-identity by resisting and subverting a very real and oppressive gender dichotomy, a dichotomy that becomes very apparent in the hijras’ own use of feminine, and masculine-marked speech. Constrained by linguistic system which allows for only two morphological genders, Hindi-speaking hijras, when uttering phrases that are self-referential, must gender themselves as either feminine or masculine. The hijras have organized their lives in resistance to a social structure that prevents their integration. The dissatisfaction articulated by South Asian researchers with respect to the hijras’ vocal patterns may have much to do with the fact that many hijras alternate between feminine and masculine self-reference in order to convey certain social meanings. While the hijras’ use of the honorific system is consistent with larger Hindi-speaking community, they additionally indicate many of the same distinctions through gender system.