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Simzter t1_ir1xrwl wrote

Reply to comment by Luigi_Conte in IAmA anthropologist and filmmaker making a documentary about the transgender community in Kashmir. AMA! by Luigi_Conte

So transgender people have a role to fulfil in Kashmir society? What status does that give them?

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Luigi_Conte OP t1_ir1z3n8 wrote

Being marriage a crucial moment for most of the people that assures them some amount of respect and visibility. Imagine to have a transgender person performing at almost every marriage you have attended in your life since childhood. That's already a first step towards acceptance. But things are actually quite controversial...at the same time the only Kashmiri word to define them is a slur (Lanch), while the formal term that is used for them is related to their profession: "Menzimiur"(middlemen)

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Simzter t1_ir23sfc wrote

You said things are changing, in what way

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Luigi_Conte OP t1_ir27353 wrote

On one side there's an attempt from the community to detach from other forces to represent them...for example a recently appointed government committee for transgender people was questioned as it doesn't involve any community member and it mingles Jammu's (a Hindu majority city in the South of Jammu&Kashmir) and Kashmir's transgdenders demands.

On the other side young generation, also due to internet exposure, is going for gender reassignment surgery, a trend which has created some discontent among the elders, who claim that this doesn't fit in the Kashmiri transgender tradition

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