In India, the kinnar community—a term used for intersex and transgender individuals—has long been marginalised and often abandoned or rejected by their biological families. For centuries, the kinnar community has built its own supportive networks through the gharana system.
In South Asia, hijra[a] are transgender, intersex, or eunuch people who live in communities that follow a kinship system known as the guru–chela system. [5][6][7][8] They are also known as aravani and aruvani, and, in Pakistan, khawaja sira. [9] Hijra is officially recognised as a third gender throughout countries in the Indian subcontinent, [10][11][12] being considered neither completely ...
A deep dive into the paradoxical role of the Kinnar (Hijra) community in Indian culture, exploring their mythological origins and sacred, auspicious presence in rituals like weddings and childbirth.
Kinnar Akhada: How transgenders claimed a pivotal place in Hindu monastic order From being empowered by Lord Rama to bestow blessings on all ceremonious occasions to being criminalised under British colonial laws to claiming an akhara in Kumbh Mela, kinnars have carved a distinct religious identity within Hinduism.
Watch Zainab Salbi’s documentary in the sources above. What do the lives of Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and Madhu Kinnar say about gender and Hinduism in an Indian context? What is similar about their stories and what is different? In what ways do hijras have power in South Asian cultures? In what ways do they lack power? How does this affect ...
Kinnara (किन्नर) [Also spelled kinnar]:— (nm) a mythical being with human figures and a head of horse or with a horse’s body and the head of a man; a race celebrated as musicians. Source: DDSA: A practical Hindi-English dictionary context information ...