I'm actually carrying out this project in the Indian side of Kashmir...so I feel I cannot t express any thought about transgender people's condition there. Regarding India I'm not sure in general that identity politics have been successful. The aim is progressive but to certain extent they have often produced some social envy when it's about quotas and subsidies. As many complex issues also here I find it hard to point out a simple solution. Also media visibility for sure doesn't harm, but I find even in the west it's quite different when we relate the LGBTQI+ discourse to some famous singer, actor or whatever and when it's about a family member. I always feel that progressive changes in the moral sphere are happening slowly, often on a microscopic scale far away from the highlights, and sometimes it's even hard to realize they are going on.

That is a persona choice....btw in my country I was able to get scholarships for MA and PhD, but I wouldn't consider it if that means having a lone

That's quite a controversial topic:

they consider themselves Muslims even if this can be problematic as for all LGBTQI+ and they mostly pray at Sufi shrines, where Islam is often preached in a softer way.

On a broader cultural perspective I would say that they have a role when it's about marriages, and marriage is a cornerstone in Kashmiri society. This doesn't solve everything of course...families mostly do not accept their children when they realize they are non-binary and teasing at school is an ordinary thing, so self acceptance is anyway a difficult psychological path. During the teenage many of them find protection from a transgender guru and go to live in a queer family cluster, while some neighborhoods in main cities have become somehow queer-friendly, so that they keep attracting newcomers

That's quite a huge amount of questions! I will try to reply shortly:

-1Being Muslims for example they're not related to Hindu mythology as Hijra, but at the same time they adopted guru-chela structure. Many of them have relations with Indian transgender people and some even have Hindu Gurus. I have heard also someone claiming to be like "sadhus", being above caste, religion and so on...so borders are quite blurred and dynamic.

-2 Matchmaking is a profession some non transgender people also do..means collecting informations of girls and boys and presenting them to families with informations about social position, education, reputation etc...

-3 Yes...generational gap is quite an issue actually. Elders are often quite sober when it's about dressing and make up, but Youngers are more and more trying to express their female side. Gender reassignment surgery is one of this divisive topics and it's getting quite controversial.

-4 I would say that in their society, according to Islamic rules, their attitude is still acceptable till we don't speak about sexual life. So that part is not formally expressed

Perhaps that's a philosophical question..I'm afraid I'm not entitled to answer

Not really...I keep away from politics and related issues!

As this traditional system is much older than the ballroom culture I might hypotesize that the latter might have been inspired by some pre-existing practices and rituals. In this perspective I will add that whenever there are tensions in the community (let's say someone speaking behind someone else) things are discussed and dramatized in front of the others, somehow playing with tensions and dissipating the aggressiveness throughout a ritualized approach

Of course making a film like this means also trying to produce some social change: regarding the transgender people themselves we're implementing a partecipative approach, involving them in the realization of the documentary, giving them a voice, and training some of them in using cameras. Then it will be their job to use these skills in an autonomous way. On the other side we would like to show how is such a complicated context a deep social change is actually happening faraway from the much highlighted Kashmiri dispute and the violence that has been affecting the local people in the last decades. In a third perspective we would like to break the stereotypes western people often have about tolerance in a Muslim society, especially considering that Kashmiri Muslims are themselves a minority in in the wider context of India, and they're often depicted as fundamentalists and terrorists.

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

It is quite a controversial issue! Actually there's no word for them in Kashmiri language than a slur (Lanch), but when they informally speak to each other they use this same word (almost like afroamericans did with n..., trying to use a transformative approach). When they speak to outsiders they often use the term Hijra, which is anyway related to Hindu transgenders, or transgenders. It is also interesting to know that they have a guru-disciple social structure, with a complicated network of sisterly relation that makes actually feel we're speaking of a community.

This matchmaking (and performer) status is only related to trans women...It's difficult to predict what this traditional role can lead to when we speak about other trans categories, but I would say that's a starting point. It would be great for example if these people would use their social position to support other LGBTQI+ minorities, but I often see that divisions are strong...for example, as I have written in another comment, when it's about gender reassignment surgery

I have been living and doing research for a few years there, and attending marriages (where they use to perform) I got to know many of them. Of course it is not easy to access to their most intimate issues, mostly because many of them suffered due to family and friends rejection.... but I believe that whoever we are, when we employ a significant amount of empathy, we can build incredibly strong bridges

1 I think the biggest surprise is the amount of tolerance I witnessed towards the community considering the troubles that affect the area. In neighborhoods for example I always felt that asking for a transgender person's address has never created any humorous or whatever reaction.

2 The process was quite complicated: making it short...during my phd research I observed how masculine and feminine roles (as victims and perpetrators) are bringing on the vicious circle of violence in Kashmir. So I started to wonder...what about those who are outside this dichotomy? And isn't their interstitial position somehow resembling that of Kashmiris as a whole between Indian and Pakistani discourses? Then things, of course, have moved on!

There are several topics we're going to tackle in the film, but basically we'll try to cover an ongoing emancipation process and self empowerment of the community. This means also creating an autonomy among government's and NGO's attempts to take over their grievances. On the other side there are some generational tensions inside the community itself, for example when speaking about gender reassignment surgery, which is becoming popular among the youngsters, but isn't accepted by elders due to their specific tradition and their Muslim faith. Elders use to claim that changing the body would be against Islam, but some young transgender people assert that this is the way they could even marry according Islamic rules, somehow overcoming the potential stigma of homosexuality and sodomy

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)

Actually things are quite different than what an outsider would expect considering the context. Traditionally this community covers the role of marriage matchmaking and performing at weddings. Generally speaking there's a surprising degree of tolerance towards them, even of course, some radicalized parts of the society behave quite differently. But the most important thing is that things are quickly changing nowadays!