Blessing is acceptable but why not they?

Basically we all homo sapience are made by God! It is our faith. On the other hand, our scientific education says when a man and woman perform sexual intercourse, their egg (sperm and ovum) form a fusion of gametes (zygote) that turns into young one after the period of nine months. We consider both the reasons acceptable then why not third gender? When people abuse each other it is incapacitate for them that they fight with each other on small issues, why? Because according to them it’s called pain. Had we ever realize about the one whom we call as “HIJRA”; how much it is painful for them to listen when people call “HIJRA”?

Among the fundamental principles of Hinduism are dharma (the right action in a given context) and ahimsa (nonviolence), as well as reincarnation and a belief in each person’s inherent divinity. Gender and sexuality are understood to be mutable. Morality and purity are informed by many factors and are not grounded in dogma. The goal of every Hindu is to conclude the journey to the divine self, the Atman, which is without gender yet embodies male and female as well as a third “other”. No particular Hindu philosophy claims ascendancy over others. It is believed that we must each make the journey back to the source in accordance with our individual nature. Within every person there exists male and female, giving everyone an inherently “bisexual” nature. This does not mean bisexuality as a condition in the way the West sees it, but it does free each person to discover and acknowledge the male and the female within the self if they are to grow to their full potential on the journey to the highest self.

In the Tantra, which forms the bedrock of both Hindu and Buddhist thought, the dynamic of sexuality and gender is an indicator of natural procreative regeneration, a process of psychological and spiritual integration. These complex spiritual and philosophical ideas have been realized in the many myths and legends of India going back more than 5 000 years, and have given shape to the idea of the transgender person, a person of the “third gender”, also known as the hijra.

Hijras (who can be eunuchs, intersex or transgender) are seen as evolved beings. They appear in ancient texts as bearers of luck and fertility. This sacred idea of the androgyne is developed in the many myths relating to the god Shiva, who is male and female and who, in this dual state, is called Ardhanarishvara.

Ardhanarishvara is the presiding deity of the Ajna or chakra of the third eye, associated with spiritual awakening. This is where we transcend gender in finding the perfect balance between our male and female selves. Hinduism often conceives of each person as in search of our female half if we are male or the male side if we are female, in a quest for integration and transcendence.

There is a transgender presence in the Tantra, as well as in the epic text the Mahabharata, in which the male Shikhandi (born as the female Shikhandini) was pivotal in the great war of Kurukshetra. Elsewhere in the epic tale is the story of the warrior Aravan, who knew he would die in battle but wished to be married first. So the god Krishna assumed female form and married Aravan.

In South India, hijra communities attend a pilgrimage to worship Krishna and Aravan, seeing in the marriage the supreme sacrifice of love because, in the Mahabharata, on the next day the transgender Krishna was widowed. The hijra community re-enact this legend every year in a colorful ritual that lasts several days. Many transgender myths and legends come alive in such annual pilgrimages, often attended by married heterosexual men who dress as women for the day to gain favor or a boon from the goddess.

In Hinduism, the highest self, the Atman, is attained when we realize our divinity. This highest self is without gender. The Tantric Shastra, which informs the philosophy that underlies this idea of divine androgyny, is considered a sacred text.

For centuries, hijras were respected as spiritual figures in society, though they have faced discrimination in India since colonial times. In the cities of modern India, many hijras have had to scratch out a living by begging or taking on menial jobs or sex work.

A landmark 2014 judgment by India’s Supreme Court granted transgender people the status of a “third gender”, recognizing them as a socially and economically disadvantaged class. “It is the right of every human being to choose their gender,” the judgment stated, granting rights to those who self-identify as neither male nor female.

The court also directed the government to provide transgender people with adequate access to healthcare, education and employment, as well as separate public toilets and other safeguards against discrimination. Documents such as birth certificates, passports and driver’s licenses will now have a box for a third gender.

A transgender minister has been elected to government, jobs have been reserved for what is now a scheduled group, and India’s first transgender news anchor has gone on air. A man marrying a hijra is now fairly common. Once in such a marriage, which is heterosexual by nature, the couple often fosters a child. This means the dignity of transgender people is steadily being restored.(Mail & guardian Sept, 10)

When their family members come to know about ambiguous gentile (a pseudo-hermaphrodite is either a male or a female) they kick them out of home because they act as a female in the shape of man’s body, but nobody think about the reason they act so; it happens because of their hormonal change. They too must have some dreams but they can’t fulfill it because of our society as people not let them live among them, further they join their own society, where for earnings they go to shops, in train, people shout on them, throw sleepers, shoes, sandal upon them.

In our society they were sought after to perform blessings and ceremonies at marriages and birth. And people believe that getting coin from them is like boon to have success and happiness in life. If we accept their blessing and why not them? They are human too.