![]() ![]() The authors explore how the figure of the hijra-drawn from South Asian folk narratives, religious discourse, and popular culture-might be used strategically by social activists in political performance narratives to (1) encourage a complicated sense of sexually ambiguous or queer practices and identities, and (2) acknowledge individuals facing social oppression due to their marginalized identities. ![]() This article focuses on a feminist appropriation of the hijra within yoni ki baat, a South Asian American version of The Vagina monologues. In folktale, dance, song, religious epic, and popular culture, the figure of the hijra often evokes a liminal play of “otherness.” Commonly known as the “third gender”-a conceptual space outside of typical Western constructs-hijra individuals engage with varied notions of transsexual, transgender, intersex, cross- dresser, eunuch, or sexual fluidity. Performances of gender identity and sexuality by hijras in South Asia have awakened audiences’ imaginings since the Kama Sutra period (Gupta 2005:180). In the process, folklore scholars have become increasingly intrigued by bodies that appear to transgress dimorphism, and complicate binary oppositions like male/female. In recent years, a growing group of scholars has begun to draw upon queer theory as they research aspects of LGBTQ folk performances and texts from around the globe. ![]()
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