Hijra (South Asia)

Hijra (for translations, see ) is a term used in South Asia – particularly in India and Pakistan – to refer to transgender individuals who were assigned male at birth. In different areas of Pakistan and India, transgender people are also known as Aravani, Aruvani or Jagappa.

In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government, being neither completely male nor female. In India also, transgender people have been given the status of third gender and are protected as per the law despite the social ostracism. The term more commonly advocated by social workers and transgender community members themselves is khwaja sira (Urdu: خواجہ سرا‎) and can identify the individual as a transsexual person, transgender person (khusras), cross-dresser (zenanas) or eunuch (narnbans).

Hijras have a recorded history in the Indian subcontinent from antiquity onwards as suggested by the Kama Sutra period. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual and part survival.

In South Asia, many hijras live in well-defined and organised all-hijra communities, led by a guru. These communities have sustained themselves over generations by "adopting" boys who are in abject poverty, rejected by, or flee, their family of origin. Many work as sex workers for survival.

The word "hijra" is an Urdu word derived from the Semitic Arabic root hjr in its sense of "leaving one's tribe," and has been borrowed into Hindi. The Indian usage has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite," where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition." However, in general hijras are born with typically male physiology, only a few having been born with intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirwaan, which refers to the removal of the penis, scrotum and testicles.

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