Bangladesh: Adnan Hossain is the expert on transsexuals in Bangla culture

“There is no legal stance on transsexual surgery in Bangladesh. Nor is there any medical establishment caring for the needs of transsexual people.” Source – Fourth Round of the Universal Periodic Review, Report on Bangladesh, February 2009.

Richard Ammon wrote an article about Bangladesh in 2006 and updated it in Aug 2008.

It is a definitive picture of Bangladesh and covers precisely why the Western concept of ‘transsexual’ simply has not made it into Bangladesh.

It explains why there is no lesbian movement in Bangladesh. That’s because ‘there are no lesbians’.

And why there is no gay movement. Because ‘there are no gays’.

And why there is no women’s movement.

For the explanation of that, read Richard’s article at Richard Ammon on Dhaka, Bangladesh.

It kicks off on the existence but non-existence of gay Bangladesh. It paints a truly vibrant picture of what life is like in the country’s capital, Dhaka.

The following is lifted from the article, so it’s Richard Ammon on “Adnan Hossain is the expert on transsexuals in Bangla culture”.

Bangladesh is a Muslim country but it is not an Islamist one so people don’t live under the gender-separate strictures seen in other more fundamentalist countries as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

Adnan and his Transsexual Friends

My other companion at Lalbagh Fort was Adnan Hossain, a college lecturer in Development Studies at British-American University, a small new college, one of many in Dhaka.

Adnan is probably the most knowledgeable person in Bangladesh about the ‘outcast’ hijra transsexual ‘females’ of the Bangla culture. His interest in human sexuality extends across a broad social spectrum from queer studies to transgender identity. He has extensively researched and written about the underserved and scorned world of male-to-female trans persons who inhabit the nether-land of cross-gender life.

During a visit to his university office, Adnan insisted the word ‘hijra’ is difficult to translate into English because it is a summary word that encapsulates a variety of ‘other-sex’ people. “Hijras are a mosaic of ‘polymorphous’ gendered females who live on the impoverished fringe of society. Nearly all of these women are male-to-female. Many have had sex change surgery yet many have not. The latter are not simply transvestites because these ‘men’ identify as women and feel that is their true gender ID. Keeping their cocks acts like a mask that protects them from being identified as a hijra in the areas where they live with their straight families.”

Adnan claims hijras are seen by straight society as sexually impotent, but closer analysis reveals them as authentically sexually desirous beings who gain gratification as passive partners of males and being in that role allows them to feel vicariously female.

Adnan says he is not “a gay”; he is married and his wife recently they gave birth to a daughter. Prior to his marriage Adnan disclosed to his fiancé that he had previously taken a hijra as a ‘wife’ as part of his research. Although it was not a legally registered ceremony there was a hijra ritual conducted by that community. Adnan said his legal wife accepted this arrangement since she was quite liberal of mind.

“The hijra subculture is a very closed subculture. They are ridiculed and scorned by the larger society so they are naturally protective of their bodies and community. I could never get inside their minds, their community, their mythology, their secrets as an outsider, so I agreed to marry one in order to become more familiar and friendly with them. I wanted to take the step into their world.”

Seemingly a cold motive for taking a hijra ‘wife’, Adnan is nevertheless passionate about his desire to talk and act on behalf of the hijra community, which numbers in the thousands in Bangladesh, to improve their dim destiny. “Some of them are so uneducated they cannot even write their name…I would like to start a school for them and help them to find work other than begging and prostitution.”

Yet despite their questionable status hijras are occasionally called to ‘bless’ childbirths or entertain at weddings (where more than one seduction has occurred) stemming from old cultural myths that ‘inter-sex’ people had spiritual powers of wisdom and healing. Indeed, across southeast Asia similar folklore regarding enhanced spiritual authority of polysexual people are woven into ancient legends and mythologies.

But not uncommonly, even in western ‘advanced gay societies’, transsexuals and transvestites are often the orphans of gay lib and gay rights movements. Bangladesh is no exception, Adnan explained. “There is no outreach to the hijra community from the gays here—assuming they could find each other. Even if there were a gay community here, they would have nothing to do with hijras,” Adnan declared. “It’s another example of what I call ’horizontal hostility’ –discrimination against one’s own type or rank.”

However, Adnan does recognize that it’s more than just a sexuality issue. “We are a very class-separated society. You don’t find the classes mixing very much. Hijras are very poor and without education. The middle and upper classes don’t deal with such people except as labourers.

It would be virtually impossible for these two extreme opposites to meet as equals. There are many well-to-do gays who drive around in their family’s car and go to universities abroad. This is unthinkable for the vast majority here, including the hijras. So I’m not foolishly idealistic but I think hijras do deserve a small chance at a better life.”

The negative view of hijras was further confirmed over dinner one evening at Spaghetti Jazz restaurant. When I asked Tanveer why gays don’t connect with hijras. He said, “because of their weird behaviour. They harass people. They don’t just beg. If someone refuses to give them baksheesh (money) they will start yelling at the person or they may expose themselves and act crazy. Who wants to be around that! I think that they are caught in a vicious cycle of cultural norm--a transgendered person can't find any normal job anywhere. So, the only thing they can do is go and live with people of their kind and extort money from others or work as sex-workers." However, even though he keeps a distance from hijras, he does not feel they should be treated so badly by society.

Tanveer told about a debate with his father when the latter expressed his disapproval of transvestites one evening at dinner. This was just after his parents had sympathetically viewed an Indian TV program on HIV, which included reference to same-sex relationships. (Parental reactions to sexual matters can vary greatly: when he revealed his sexual orientation to his masters-degreed mother she immediately broke into distracted prayer. And his brother does not understand it at all.)