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Eunuchs are eligible to be enrolled' – 1196 viewsEunuchs are eligible to be enrolled'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, MARCH 24. The Chief Electoral Officer has clarified that eunuchs are eligible to be enrolled in electoral rolls. While filing Form 6, they are free to indicate their preference in the column relating to sex. It will be entered in the electoral rolls, following the statutory procedure prescribed in the Representation of the People Act 1950. Once the name is enrolled in the electoral rolls, eunuchs will be eligible for the elector's photo identity, an official release said here today.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/25/stories/2004032506550400.htm

Indian debt collector calls in the eunuchs – 1088 viewsIndian debt collector calls in the eunuchs
Channel to take heed and bolster credit control departments?
By Linda HarrisonPublished Thursday 6th May 1999 16:29 GMTSecurity White Papers - Download them free from Reg Research A cure for the spectre of bad debt currently stalking the IT industry may lie in the back streets of Bombay. In this Indian city, a debt-collecting firm has taken to employing eunuchs to embarrass those slow at paying up. The six eunuchs currently employed threaten to remove their saris, bringing shame on offenders, their businesses and their families. For those sceptics out there, bear in mind that this scheme has generated £8,500 in just a few weeks – a tidy sum in rupees, whichever way you look at it. According to today’s Daily Telegraph, BR Shetty, director of the aptly named Unique Recoveries, said: "By the grace of God success is there. People don’t like to be humiliated. We are also giving work to these people. They are very educated but nobody will give them jobs." Shetty has hopes of expanding the business to chase credit card non-payers. "I am close to signing a deal with a foreign bank," he told the Telegraph. "If I win a contract to collect money for credit card defaulters, I will have to employ 100 eunuchs." There are believed to be 150,000 eunuchs in Bombay alone. Once guards to royalty, their lot is not a happy one in modern India.

sourced from the net..

Eunuchs tickitless gender – 1323 viewsCops strip 2 eunuchs

Ranjani Ramaswamy

Mumbai, September 13: TWO eunuchs were on Wednesday arrested on a railway platform, beaten, stripped naked and thrown into a lock-up. The punishment was for travelling ticketless and the horrific treatment meted out in the name of protecting women in the ladies’ compartment they were attempting to board.
The two eunuchs are educated and work as peer educators with the Humsafar Both, the Bandra Railway Police as well as Manisha More (28) and Manasa Choudhry (25), agree on the sequence of events. At around 7.30 pm on September 11, More and Choudhry were arrested from a platform in Bandra railway station and dragged to the police station. They were booked under two charges, travelling ticketless and attempting to board the ladies compartment. Then, instead of slapping a fine and letting them go, they were stripped by constables almost on the street, ostensibly to ascertain whether they were really transgender individuals, and then thrown into the crowded lock-up where they say they were manhandled by the inmates.
‘‘We begged them to take us to a separate room and check but they just laughed at us. They beat us and stripped us in front of everyone. They then emptied our bag with all the educational material and started throwing it about. Since our bag always contains condoms supplied by the government, they all laughed and showed the condom packets to everyone, yelling disgustedly at us that we were sex workers. When I said we were educated and respectable individuals, they just mimicked us and pushed us naked into the lock-up, laughing and telling the men inside to have fun with us,’’ says More angrily. She says the men inside tried to paw at them. ‘‘They tried to rape us, but we begged and wept at their feet not to touch us. After 15 minutes or so they left me alone but Manasa was attacked for far longer. Why should we be stripped and beaten in front of the whole world for just travelling ticketless?’’ she asks.
Senior Police Inspector of the Bandra Railway police station R S Tadvi says the strip search was conducted to verify whether they were men or eunuchs. ‘‘People were laughing because they were men posing as hijras. When we found the condoms, we were flabbergasted. After all, which right-minded sanstha promotes the dhanda, safe sex or not? Persons from the NGO too, when they came to take them back, admitted that the two should not have been travelling ticketless.
They also told us how to deal with the hijras in their organisation if we met them again,’’ he says. He offers no explanation on why More and Choudhry were left naked in the cell after the ‘verification’. They were given their clothes back only after a co-worker from Humsafar came to bail them out.
With increasing intolerance of the hijra population and the begging, robbing, soliciting and physical threats they sometimes pose to commuters, the police say they are forced to take action. They say that after the rape of a minor on a suburban train, more women are now vociferous about their safety and the nuisance that eunuchs sometimes create.
Tadvi adds, ‘‘We have received clear orders from our commissioner to take action against ticketless hijras. Since September 1, we have arrested 26 hijras for ticketless travel and begging. In Bandra, there are colonies of hijras who are actually unemployed men who use begging as an occupation.’’
Assistant Commissioner of Police R Nanaware says, ‘‘I am not saying that the inhumanity — if it happened — is warranted. But the fact remains that there are serious reasons for us to take action against the soft crimes of hijras. If they were so honourable, why weren’t they travelling with tickets?’’
Chairman of the Humsafar Trust Ashok Row Kavi is disgusted and disheartened by the incident. ‘‘How can they even justify such inhuman actions? What gave them the right to strip them and beat them? Already, the transgender community is so alienated, angry with the ostracism and unemployment they face. Many, in an act of defiance, do not buy tickets. We try to do something by training them and making them reach out into their communities to educate others. How will they ever want to effect positive change if such incidents occur?’’
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=29502

Fading Glory Aging Hijra – 1217 viewswhen the hijra begins to age
an imaginary menopausal rage
hurdles and pitfall at every stage
emotional collapse
receeding hairline
embittered battle wage
a dying bird
asthamatic
pungent
memories archived
in a rusty cage

May 30th, 2008

Eunuchs and Vedas – 3237 viewsExcluding Gays and Lesbians from Vedic Culture
By Amara dasa

Since time immemorial and within all cultures of the world, gays, lesbians, transgendered and intersexed people have been described, acknowledged and even accommodated within society. From the “mahu” and “aikane” of Polynesia to the “berdache” of Native American tribes; from the “sekhet” of prehistoric Egypt to the “eunouchos” of ancient Greece and Rome; from the “saris” of the Israelites to the “mu’omin” or trusted men of the Syrians; from the traditional third-gender roles of aboriginal tribes in Africa such as among the Mbo people of Zaire to the palace and harem guards of the Arabs and Chinese; from the cross-dressing entertainers of Manila and Bangkok to the “hijra” and “jogappa” dancers and temple priests of North and South India; right down to our own modern gay and transgendered communities in San Francisco, London and Sydney—persistent and unmistakable “third” or alternative gender subcultures have always naturally existed in one form or another. This is true regardless of whether their members were positively accommodated or negatively suppressed within each of their respective societies. By all accounts, these various third-gender subcultures have always displayed a prevalence of homosexual behavior and cross-dressing. Their members were typically not involved in sexual procreation, and some were even known to commit themselves to castration (or, nowadays, transsexual operations and corrective surgery).

Social Denial

To suggest that homosexual people were somehow excluded or left unnoticed by India’s ancient Vedic civilization and its Sanskrit texts is neither reasonable nor fair to that great culture. India’s ancient literatures are comprised of voluminous texts and their priestly authors were well known for their detailed accounts of all sciences, both godly and mundane. It is highly unlikely that they would omit or overlook any aspect of human nature. Rather, we see in the Kama Shastra full accounts of both men and women who are “tritiya-prakriti” or “third-sexed” by nature and described as homosexual. Their different categories, methods of employment, and various sexual practices are all fully described. Ruth Vanita, an associate professor at the University of Montana and author of “Same-Sex Love in India” writes: “If late nineteenth-century European sexologists invented such terms as “invert,” “the third sex,” and “homosexual,” the Kamasutra’s term “the third nature” refers to a man who desires other men. Whether the man concerned is feminine looking or masculine looking, the Kamasutra emphasizes that this external appearance makes no difference to his desire for men.” The “Kamasutra” of Vatsyayana so dominates the field in terms of Sanskrit texts representing the Kama Shastra that most scholars of ancient Indian culture restrict their studies exclusively to it. In his important commentaries on this work, the famous pandita Yashodhara of the twelfth century adds: “The third sex [‘tritiya-prakriti’] is also termed neuter [‘napumsaka’].” “Napumsaka” is a Sanskrit term equal to “kliba” and “sandha” in Vedic texts, but while early British and English scholars translate this word only as “eunuch” and “neuter” in their dictionaries, Yashodhara clearly also assigns it to the third-natured people portrayed in the Kamasutra as homosexuals.

“What is this?” you might say. “Homosexuality described in the Kama Shastra?” Yes, most certainly, but then some people will always counter: “Then we will not accept this Kama Shastra. We will accept its sister texts like the Dharma and Artha Shastras, or texts such as the Jyotir and Ayur Shastras, but we will not accept the Kama Shastra since it mentions that homosexuality existed in Vedic times.” As soon as we reach this point it quickly becomes obvious that something more is at play here, something known as “social denial.” Some people are so uncomfortable with homosexuality and gay and lesbian people that they refuse to believe that such persons were ever mentioned or studied by past civilizations. They deny or hide any references made to them and disassociate themselves from their presence as far as possible. This exclusion of gay and lesbian people often requires such persons to “demonize” homosexuals and keep them silent or hidden. In severe cases they will even impose legal restrictions against them or apply violence in order to keep them out of sight. In this particular case, gays and lesbians are being excluded from their place in Vedic culture and history, either deliberately or due to a general lack of knowledge about the third sex category.

Silence by Castration

The attempt to castrate, silence and otherwise remove homosexual people from human society is nothing new. In Hitler’s Germany, for instance, homosexuals were systematically arrested, castrated and sent to death. In many backward countries of the world today, gay and lesbian people are still regularly arrested, imprisoned, coerced into castration or put to death. These are gross examples, but there are equally effective subtle ones in which gay people are removed or hidden away from the public arena. One common example of this within modern-day Indian culture is the popular notion that homosexuals did not exist in Vedic times. According to this theory, the Vedic third sex referred only to “eunuchs” (castrated men) or “neuters” (people born without sex organs). Because homosexuality is so detestable in their view, they surmise that it couldn’t possibly have existed during a more enlightened Vedic India.

This misconception is highly inaccurate and was perpetuated by early British authors and translators who were not only uneducated in terms of gender variance, but also unwilling to portray it fairly, if at all. Today’s scholars are gradually abandoning this notion as society becomes more familiar and honest about gender-variant issues like homosexuality, transgender identity, and various intersexed conditions, the three major groups of people that comprise the third-sex class.

The present-day “hijra” or “eunuch” class of Northern India is unquestionably comprised largely of homosexual and transgendered people, with only a very few who are truly intersexed (born with ambiguous genitalia). This has been documented through years of research and personal interviews conducted by professionals like Dr. Serena Nanda, the Professor of Anthropology for the City University of New York. Despite this fact, most people in India still persist in believing that all hijras are born hermaphroditic or intersexed. In her book “Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India” Nanda writes: “There is a widespread belief in India that hijras are born hermaphrodites and are taken away by the hijra community at birth or in childhood, but I found no evidence to support this belief among the hijras I met, all of whom joined the community voluntarily, most often in their teens.” She also writes: “There is absolutely no question that at least some hijras—perhaps even the majority—are homosexual prostitutes. Sinha’s (1967) study of hijras in Lucknow, in North India, acknowledges the hijra role as performers, but views the major motivation for recruitment to the hijra community as the satisfaction of the individual’s homosexual urges…”

That even modern-day Indians are reluctant to view hijras or “eunuchs” as homosexual, preferring to see them only as hermaphrodites or “sexless,” indicates a type of popular social denial and ignorance that has undoubtedly been going on for quite some time. If people are unwilling to acknowledge the presence of homosexuality even within the modern-day “eunuch” class, then it should come as no surprise that they would also refuse to acknowledge its existence within India’s historical past. For the same reason, one will not find accurate or honest translations in Sanskrit dictionaries for any of the various words describing third-sex people such as “kliba,” “napumsaka,” “sandha,” etc. Even today these words are defined simply as “eunuch” (a castrated man), despite the fact that no evidence supports any system of castration in pre-Islamic India. In his article “Homosexuality and Hinduism,” Arvind Sharma expresses his doubt about this word definition as follows: “the limited practice of castration in India raises another point significant for the rest of the discussion, namely, whether rendering a word such as “kliba” as “eunuch” regularly is correct…”

Biological Indications

Since homosexuality has been recorded throughout the animal kingdom and within various world cultures, whether civilized or aboriginal, it is much more likely to be a persistent biological phenomenon (a third sex) rather than a modern-day anomaly or social deviation. Recent scientific studies also indicate that the three main categories of the third sex (i.e. homosexuality, transgender identity, and intersexed conditions) are indeed most likely natural biological variations. Scientists have unquestionably proven that most intersexed conditions are caused by variances in the balance of male and female hormones during early fetal development. They also widely suspect that homosexual orientation and transgender identity are similarly caused during the early neurological development of the fetal brain. This is according to the American Psychological Association’s “1998 Public Interest Report,” the point being that homosexual orientation, transgender identity, and anatomically intersexed conditions are most likely interrelated biological variations of nature (“prakriti”), as similarly portrayed in the Sanskrit text of the Kamasutra. As a biological occurrence, the third sex would certainly have been just as prevalent during Vedic times as it was anywhere else.

It is also important to note that estimates place chronic intersexuality as occurring in approximately one in every 36,600 births; transgender identity in about one in every 6,000 births; and homosexuality in about one in every 20 births. This is according to medical statistics taken from 1955-1998 by the University of California at Davis and Brown University. The disparity between the different groups in terms of sheer numbers gives us an idea as to the natural composition of the third gender social class as a whole, with homosexuals being by far the most prominent, followed by transgenders and then the intersexed.

“A Rose By Any Other Name…”

Anyone familiar with modern GLBTI (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexed) communities and people will immediately recognize the correlation between them and the Vedic descriptions of the third sex. This is because their third-gender qualities and behaviors are universal and, especially nowadays, quite well known. Despite the differences in language and terminology, such people have basically remained the same by nature throughout time and place, just like the two primary genders themselves. I highly doubt if it will be possible to conceal the gay and transgendered people of Vedic literature under such inaccurate words like “eunuch” or “neuter” for much longer; not without being ridiculed or considered old-fashioned and unrealistic.

Sanskrit words like “kliba,” “napumsaka,” “sandha,” etc., were most likely used to refer to anyone of the third nature whether they were homosexual, transgendered, or intersexed. I am not saying that “kliba” means only homosexual, but that rather it can indicate a person from any of these three categories, all of whom are sexually impotent and neutral in regard to women. To insist that it only refers to the smallest group of intersexed people, or to castrated men in a society where castration was not practiced, is conveniently small-minded and misleading. Most Sanskrit words have many different meanings and can be used in a variety of ways. In general, it is the purpose of language to express and identify things as clearly as possible. In the case of the Mahabharata, for instance, Brihannala is clearly described as a transgender male, that is to say, a man who dresses, lives and identifies as a woman. Therefore it would be more accurate in this case to translate “kliba” as “transgender” rather than use the outdated word “eunuch.” To my knowledge there are no descriptions of Arjuna being physically castrated or transformed into an intersexed person, but there are descriptions of him displaying typical transgendered behavior. Either way, it is actually not important to me whether Brihannala was homosexual, transgendered or intersexed. Rather, I am concerned when people feel the need to emphasize that Brihannala was definitely not homosexual, or that the word “kliba” cannot in any case include the homosexual people of the third sex.

In the Bhagavad-gita verse (2.3), there is a hidden meaning in Lord Krishna’s usage of the word “klaibyam.” Arjuna had recently been living as a “kliba” or transgender male, and therefore Krishna is warning him that if he presents himself as weak on the battlefield, his enemies might consider that he is perhaps still transgendered. It is also interesting to note that while Sanskrit dictionaries define “kliba” as “impotent, emasculated, a eunuch; unmanly, timorous, weak, idle, a coward,” these very same meanings are implied today in the popular modern usage of the word “gay” among heterosexual men and schoolboys. From their perspective, being called “gay” or “homosexual” is synonymous to being labeled “effeminate,” “unmanly,” “weak,” etc., exactly like the Sanskrit word “kliba” of ancient times. A coincidence?

Another interesting point to note is that before the word “homosexual” was coined in the late nineteenth century, homosexuals were in fact called “eunuchs” in the English language. Homosexual slaves and servants were frequently castrated during the medieval period, especially within the wealthy and influential Islamic countries of that time, and homosexual behavior was sometimes punished in Europe and even colonial America by castration. In other words, the term “eunuch” is more or less just an old-fashioned word once used to describe homosexuals and others who were impotent with women for whatever reason. I suggest that we move away from such archaic, outdated terms and employ the more appropriate and descriptive ones commonly used today.

All in all, like Arvind Sharma and many other scholars, I find it difficult to accept that the word “kliba” can only refer to the so-called “eunuchs” of the past and not to the actual homosexual, transgendered and intersexed people that we know exist at present. Srila Prabhupada himself was quite displeased and frustrated with the inaccurate and archaic term “eunuch,” and he expressed this dissatisfaction in his taped conversation with Hayagriva dasa when describing the “eunuch” dancers in Lord Caitanya’s pastimes. I suggest that the “Monier-Williams” Sanskrit dictionaries update their books to specifically include homosexuals, transgenders and the intersexed within their definitions of the “napumsaka” or neutral third sex, but I assume they will continue to avoid this uncomfortable issue for some time to come.

Everyone is Important

In conclusion, one must decide whether the Vedic third sex refers only to people without sex organs, or if it also includes those who are impotent in terms of lacking any desire for the opposite sex. If one accepts only the former, then he must discard the evidence of the Kama Shastra and deny any placement for homosexual and transgendered people within Vedic society. In reality, no natural category or class of people has been excluded from Vedic culture or its historical past. In Krsna consciousness no one is to be neglected or excluded—there is room for all. As Srila Prabhupada so nicely writes: “…even the ‘candalas,’ or the untouchables, are also not to be neglected by the higher classes and should be given necessary protection. Everyone is important, but some are directly responsible for the advancement of human society, and some are only indirectly responsible. However, when Krsna consciousness is there, then everyone’s total benefit is taken care of.”

(Krsna Book, Vol. I, Chap. 24)

http://www.chakra.org/discussions/GenFeb3_03.html

What is a Eunuch? – 1975 views fuck
dont keep on asking me
again and again
what is a eunuch?
a biological male
with a womans body language
a womans wily mind
a womans lust
a womans gullibility
in his androgynous body stuck
they call him the third gender
treat him like a schmuck
hijra bashing
hijra head hunting
humiliations
insults
he cannot duck
living like an isolated
human animal
in ghettos
his fucked bad luck
like a virgin lotus
revealing his white pristine soul
in a pond of muck
they uproot him
from his natural environment
into another filthy pond
they chuck
simply
for the sake of
making a fast buck
no gender identification
the lowest minority
the hijda out of work

May 30th, 2008

Eunuchs & Elections – 1637 viewsEunuchs & elections
Sir, — It was sad to read the report that the election of Kamla Jaan, an eunuch, three years ago as the Mayor of Katni Corporation, was set aside (Aug. 30) as it was a post reserved for women. Eunuchs are persons of doubtful sex, though dictionaries may classify them as males. There seems to be no specific rules or instructions under the election laws on how to treat eunuchs — either as males or females. Probably, taking advantage of this ambiguous position, the Election Officer in this case seems to have treated this candidate as a `female', accepted her nomination papers and allowed her to contest the polls, which she won and which has now been reversed by the judicial authorities. Eunuchs are sure to contest in future elections — be it for local bodies, State legislatures or Parliament. It is time the authorities issued suitable guidelines on how to treat the sex of `eunuchs'.
Radha N. Sriram,
Chennai
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/09/04/stories/2002090400021003.htm

Eunuchs cry for justice – 3575 viewsEunuchs cry for justice

Vinod Behl in Delhi
They have had enough of life in the twilight zone, and are now ready to make a bid for a visible image of their own.
Thus, a petition has been filed in a Chandigarh court, demanding that the People's Representation Act be amended to provide them representation in both Parliament and the state assemblies.
The petition goes further, to claim employment reservation in government and semi-government categories, under the sexually handicapped category; and, further, that suo motu criminal cases be registered against those who forcibly convert people into eunuchs.
Simultaneously, the All India Hijra Kalyan Sabha has sent an SOS to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre, demanding that the government move to ameliorate the miserable conditions under which they exist.
As per a survey done by the Sabha, there are only a few hundred genuine eunuchs countrywide -- the rest, numbering around 500,000, are the victims of forcible castration.
The petition thus charges that young children are brought to the cities by agents, from villages and towns all over the country, castrated, and then put in charge of a guru at one of the dhams, or hijra centres.
Startlingly, the petition estimates that 100,000 new eunuchs are created by forcible castration.
The petition is pitilessly detailed while describing the ritual of castration.
The victim is taken to a deserted spot and sequestered in a hut. For two whole days, he is fed on a diet of opium and milk, maintaining him in a permanent state of intoxication.
In the pre-dawn hours of the third day, the boy is held down by five or six eunuchs, while a cord is tied tightly around his testicles to stop the blood flow to the genitals.
Thereafter, his penis and testicles are severed with one slash of a sharp knife, and they are then buried. The wound is allowed to bleed, 'signifying' the draining of manhood and the onset of womanhood.
Some survive. An unestimated number of young boys, however, die during the process, and are consigned to unmarked graves.
The survivor's plight, however, continues. A rounded branch of the pipal tree is inserted into the wound to ensure that the hole is not filled. Heated oil is poured on it, and a lump of kathha is used as antiseptic to hasten the healing process.
For 48 hours, the new-created eunuch is kept awake to the deafening sounds of drums and music, and maintained on a liquid diet. At the end of this period, the festivities begin -- the 'gurus' serving sheera made in pure ghee to all and sundry.
Before a eunuch is fully accepted into the clan, however, he is made to sit, with his rectum spread wide, on top of the rounded handle of a grinding stone. Two eunuchs then push the youngster further down onto the handle, till the first drops of anal blood appear. This is taken to signify the first menstruation, and the eunuch is now a 'made' member of the clan.
At last count, there are an estimated 450 big, 1600 medium and 35,000 smaller dhams, where the young, castrated children are trained to dance and sing -- and clap in that peculiarly recognisable way -- and then put out on the streets to earn money begging at street corners and in marketplaces.
Alleging that this empire is under the control of a few hijra gurus, the petition says that eunuchs who grow old and whose earning ability is thereby lessened are then dumped, left to die on the streets.
The petition reveals details of the auction of eunuchs in various centres. In Bombay, such auctions allegedly take place in Bhindi Bazar, Pila House, Koliwada, Highway Road, and Andheri. In Delhi, the leading centre is Hare Baba Ki Mazar, near Jama Masjid.
At the time of the urs, eunuchs are auctioned at Ajmer Sharif. Auctions also take place regularly at centres such as Agra, Calcutta, Jalandhar, Baroda, Nagpur and Madras.
Pleading for the liberation of millions of unfortunates, the petition demands that eunuchs be given individual identity cards, that their names be registered in employment exchanges and be considered eligible for Class IV jobs in government, semi-government and private offices, the goal being to enable them to live with dignity.
Further, the petition asks the ageing eunuchs be given a state pension of Rs 500 a month.
And, finally, that the hijra gurus be booked, and brought to justice, for their heinous crimes.
It's a comprehensive charter of demands -- the question it will remain yet another of the unheard voices of society's underprivileged...
Prime Time Features
http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/oct/20hijra.htm

Eunuchs show all for truth's sake – 1628 viewsEunuchs show all for truth's sake!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7242_1435261,00180007.htm

Alka Rastogi
Lucknow, July 19, 2005
It's a reality check that's driving Lucknow residents nuts. Angered by imposters making money at their expense, eunuchs in the city have taken to lifting their skirts to prove authenticity.
In fact members of the third sex have also petitioned the District Magistrate and the Senior Superintendent of Police to check so-called 'fake' eunuchs who are collecting 'badhai' and 'bakshish' on behalf of the community.
Con men, mostly unemployed youth from poor families, are reportedly cashing in on engagements, marriages, mundans and other social occasions. The problem is so severe now that genuine eunuchs have begun to feel the monetary pinch in various localities of Lucknow.
The UP Eunuchs Association alleges that such malpractice is widespread in many parts of the state.
The eunuchs are certainly fighting back to protect their earnings. They have formed supervisory squads to crack down on anyone asking for money in their name. As a result, clashes have been reported between groups of genuine eunuchs and imposters who gather at functions to demand 'bakshsih'.
A number of incidents have come to light in recent months. For example Hina, an eunuch, lodged a complaint with the Ghiazipur police station stating that a gang led by Shakeel of 17/740 Indiranagar was fraudulently collecting money at public functions. The two groups had a violent showdown over the issue sometime back.
Irate residents of Lucknow say that the verbal altercations between the opposing parties often turn ugly. There's little regard for public decency as eunuchs raise their clothes to display their private parts. They also challenge the imposters, both men and women, to disrobe and prove their identity.
While eunuchs earlier used the strategy to embarrass their victims into parting with more cash, they think it will also help them ward off the phonies.
Lucknow Police is however not amused by the ploy. They have warned eunuchs that they would be booked under various sections of the IPC if they don't desist from such outrageous behaviour.

Eunuchs issue own ID cards – 1631 viewsEunuchs issue own ID cards
•
By Ahmedabad, India
May 18, 2006
AdvertisementAdvertisement
Indian eunuchs have started issuing their own photo-identity cards in a battle for business with "fake" transsexuals who have muscled in on their begging operations.
Eunuchs regularly barge uninvited as "auspicious" visitors to Indian weddings and to bless the births of children and leave only after collecting money to spare their hosts embarrassment.
Lured by the money-making prospects, eunuchs say many men are dressing up as women and are involved in small-time crime and use more aggressive tactics to collect cash - prompting the issue of cards for "genuine" eunuchs.
The newcomers demand up to 2000 rupees (roughly $A60) for an occasion and refuse to be deterred by lesser amounts, said Sanju Masi, a eunuch operating in Ahmedabad in India's western Gujarat state.
"Before eunuchs were treated with kid gloves but the fake ones won't go away with just 10 rupees," he said. "The problem has intensified and they abuse people if they don't pay them."
Sonia Ajmeri, a eunuch leader who last year ran for the state assembly on an independent ticket to represent the estimated 40,000 eunuchs in Gujarat, said the "fake eunuchs" were a big problem and growing.
"Some male partners of eunuchs dress up and go about begging and taking part in thefts and robberies," he said, adding that the card scheme had been running for about a year in Ahmedabad.
There were also about 300 "fake eunuchs" operating in another city in Gujarat, Surat, according to a report today, where a similar card scheme has been introduced amid claims the eunuchs' reputations were being damaged.
"If a person gives us money out of joy, we accept it, otherwise we bless him and leave. But the fake eunuchs coax people and ultimately harass them," one told The Indian Express newspaper.
India's estimated one million eunuchs, once the guards for the harems of India's Mughal emperors, are now more likely to be shunned and are ridiculed in Indian movies.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/eunuchs-issue-own-id-cards/2006/05/16/1147545321346.html

Martin Irvine point of View Eunuchs – 1695 viewsMartin Irvine
Georgetown University
________________________________________
The Pen(is), Castration, and Identity:
Abelard's Negotiations of Gender
Abelard's narrative of identity anxieties in his Letter of Consolation to a Friend,[1] incorrectly called by its modern editorial title, the Historia calamitatum (c.1132), is well known, but the significance of Abelard's representations of self and the body and his strategies for remasculinization have not yet become a concern of modern scholars.[2] What Abelard tries to repress in this work, his desire and the social consequences of castration, continues to be repressed in most modern studies of Abelard and Heloise. Recent theory has brought into focus the complicated connections among the sexed human body, the discourses and ideologies that "make sex," and the construction of gender identities. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries appear to be an era of heightened anxiety about the body and its sexuality. Discourse about the body, the marks or signs of sexual and gender identity, the soul / body dichotomy, and the correspondences between the material or physical condition of the body and the mind and soul proliferated. As recent studies like John Baldwin's The Language of Sex make clear, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries seem to bear out Foucault's claim that each era produces the means simultaneously to represent, manage, and control sexuality in the discourses that circulate around bodies.[3] Abelard's strategies for positioning himself as a masculine subject in a world where castrates were feminized and marked by an irrecoverable lack were thus enacted on a large stage of already conflicted and conflicting social categories. In this essay I want to unfold some of the repressions and evasions in the Abelard story, both then and now, by focusing on Abelard's project of remasculating himself with new imagined objects of wholeness that flow from his pen, from his books and the power of discourse in the homosocial world of the teacher, philosopher, and monk.
Abelard's narratives of emasculation and remasculinization participate in a large body of discourse and genres that represent bodily mutilation and stories of castration anxieties generally, and the cultural meaning of the events narrated in Abelard's letters must be sought in the larger social system of values and identities within which they were produced. I can only point out a few exmples here, but they can serve as compass points on a larger map.
Narratives of emasculating mutilation abound in accounts of the crusades, local wars, and revenge in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For example, Guibert of Nogent relates castration anxiety nightmares in his autobiographical memoirs (De vita sua), and tells war stories with graphic descriptions of genital mutilation, such as the account of Thomas of Coucy, who often hung his enemies up by their testicles and penises until the organs were ripped from their bodies (3.11). Guibert also relates the story of a young man who, on a pilgrimage to repent from a non-marital sexual union, was commanded by the devil to cut off his offending sexual organ and then use the same knife to slit his throat (3.19).[4]
There are similar revenge narratives where men are castrated by other men offended by discovered sexual intercourse, usually consensual, with a kinswoman. Castration was a recognized punishment for adultery in some regions, though the courts sought to control the application of the penalty. Canon law also prescribed castration for a Christian European found guilty of adultery with a Saracen woman.[5]
Other castration stories indicate that genital mutilation was often used against clerics and monks for sexual crimes. In the twelfth century, a nun at Watton, a monastery of the Order of St. Gilbert, disliked the cloistered life, fell in love with a young canon, and she became pregnant. When the disgrace became known to the sisters, the canon fled but was then caught by the sisters and brought back to Watton. The guilty nun, in the presence of her sisters, was forced to castrate her own lover and then return to her cell.[6]
Hugh of Lincoln (d.1200), from the knightly class in Burgundy, a Carthusian monk and bishop of Lincoln soon canonized after his death, was relieved of his intense sexual desire by a miraculous castration: one night a saint came down from heaven and castrated him, giving him only calm from that moment on.[7]
The fabliau Prestre crucifié dramatizes social anxieties about middle class adultery with clergy in the portrayal of a priest who is castrated by a sculptor of crucifixes who surprises his wife in bed with a priest. When the sculptor returns home, suspecting what his wife was up to, the priest jumps out of bed and decides to hide by mounting a newly carved cross and playing the body of Christ. Considering the body on the cross, the sculptor decides that the prick and balls are not right so he cuts them off, leaving the mutilated priest to flee into the street.[8]
These are only a few examples of numerous accounts and representations of physical emasculation, both fictional and historical, and Abelard's narrative is significant for its attempt to play down the importance of the physical violence, repressing the full psychic and social trauma in the construction of a moral and spiritual drama.
We do not have only Abelard's self-dramatization to recover the social valence of his castration. In around 1120, Roscelin of Compiegne, a teacher of dialectic and enemy of Abelard, wrote a vicious attack against Abelard in response to Abelard's criticism of Roscelin's teachings.[9] Roscelin's open letter against Abelard was written soon after Abelard's relationship with Heloise, his castration, and his entry into monastic life had become widely known (1117-18). Roscelin concludes his letter with a spiteful commentary on Abelard's identity. Abelard has no identity in Roscelin's view: he is neither monk nor cleric or layman, and he has no name, not even Petrus, since a masculine proper name loses its signification once its subject changes gender:
But, to be sure, you are lying that you can be called "Petrus" from conventional usage. I'm certain that a noun (nomen) of masculine gender, if it falls away from its own gender, will refuse to signify its usual thing (rem). For proper nouns usually lose their signification when the things signified fall back from their own completion. A house is not called a house but an imperfect house when its walls and roof are removed. Therefore since the part that makes a man has been removed, you are to be called not "Petrus" but "imperfect Petrus". It is relevant to this heap of human disgrace because in the seal by which you seal your stinking letters you form an image having two heads, one a man and the other a woman... I have decided to say many true and obvious things against your attack, but since I am writing against an imperfect man, I will leave the work that I began incomplete.[10]
According to this argument, Abelard cannot even be represented in language, since his own name is meaningless, a masculine proper noun without a referent. The body's social image in language could hardly be clearer.
Fulco (Fulk) of Deuil, in his parody of a consolation epistle addressed to Abelard around 1118, turns the public response to Abelard's castration into mock-heroic satire with close affinities to fabliau.[11] After accusing Abelard of whoring his money away, he describes in malicious detail how useful the mutilation of certain body parts has been to Abelard (invenires quantum tibi afferat utilitatis particularum ista mutilatio) since he is now relieved from disturbing passions and the heat of lust and sexual pleasure (ardor libidinis et luxuriae). Fulco then mockingly enumerates the benefits of castration for Abelard. Lacking the physical signs and body parts to perform manhood, he will be relieved of the burden of the social performance of masculinity: husbands won't fear that he'll violate their wives and he'll be able to pass through a crowd of married women with utmost decorum. A band of virgins in the flour of youth can revive the libido of old men, Fulco taunts, but they will no have no effect on Abelard. Furthermore, he'll never have to fear the temptations of homosexual society, the need to masturbate after erotic dreams, or the pleasures of bodily contact with a wife. Abelard will be able to imitate the exemplary self-castrator, Origen, and other saints and martyrs who rejoiced to be without genitals (gaudent genitalibus caruisse): "blessed are they who have castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."[12] Fulco concludes the letter with a sarcastic hope that Abelard will persevere in his holy life, so that Christ will restore whatever Abelard has lost in his future body of the blessed.[13]
A window has been opened here: in this body-logic, Abelard's lack is a sign of emasculated desire, both hetero- and homosexual. It is important to note how easily Fulco slips in the possibility of homoerotic experience, "the secret retreats of the sodomites" (sodomitarum secretos recessus), in the catalogue of pleasures denied the eunuch.[14] The implication is that Abelard must now avoid homosexual society (consortia) too, since he can only occupy the feminized position of the one penetrated. For Fulco it is not simply the fact of castration that unmans Abelard: the lack of genitals is a sign of a deeper lack, a deficiency or erasure of virtus, which alone allows the true performance of masculinity. And it was this that Abelard sought to perform through his books, a claim to this inner virtus, a fantasized phallus-substitute, a re-identification with symbolic power.
About twelve years after Roscelin's letter, at the end of his disastrous stint as abbot of the monastery of St. Gildas de Rhuys in Britanny, Abelard turned to a narrative of his own life in the form of a letter of consolation to an unnamed friend, now known as the Historia calamitatum (c.1132). This letter, the first of the collected letters of Abelard and Heloise and the first major statement from Abelard since his condemnation at the Council of Soisson in 1121, is arguably the first work in a project of remasculinization that Abelard undertook in the 1130s. The letter of consolation to a friend is a rhetorical performance of the highest order, woven from several discourses and genres, and a performance that discloses deep gender anxieties and the intense but repressed desire to be reunited to the social body that has rejected him.
Many commentators have noted that Abelard represents himself at the opening of the letter as a knight of dialectic, exchanging the soldier's life for the "weapons of dialectical argument" (dialectarum rationum armaturam). But Abelard shifts his rhetorical posture and subject position several times in the narrative, moving from representation of self as the controlling agent of conquest (in the schools and with Heloise) to one brought low by pride and lusts of the flesh (glory in his own position as magister scholarum and his love of Heloise), to one repeatedly emasculated, victimized, and feminized by enemies who worked to remove his masculine identity as magister and philosophus.
Abelard thus constructs the narrative as a sequence of gendered episodes, moving from his siege of Paris as the leading soldier of dialectic to his two primary emasculations and feminization at the hands of his enemies--his physical castration and his trial at the Council of Soisson--to the hope of another identity as father of the Paraclete community, which Abelard founded and later installed Heloise as abbess. The letter paradoxically draws much of its power from Abelard's gender switching, and here rhetoric and gender combine forces: Abelard deploys the conventions of the ethical appeal in rhetoric--the technique of seizing the benevolence and sympathy of the audience by constructing an appropriate image of character (ethos)--with the conventions of gender, representing himself occupying, quite "unnaturally," the feminine position before the authority of other men.
A pivotal point in the letter is the shift in narrative form when relating the story of his fall in Paris. At this turn, the representation of self becomes a story of feminized victimization, much like the classic female martyr-saints, even though the story is framed as a deserved fall through pride and lust.[15] Although abject from his sense that he had betrayed his host, Fulbert, canon of Notre Dame and Heloise's uncle, he portrays himself as castrated and raped by Fulbert's lackeys and subject to the power and authority of the institution whose power he once eagerly identified with. His subjectivity and identity become a site of heightened conflict: the magister is no longer a full masculine subject but experiences himself more as subject of higher authorities and power, an identity formed by other (masculine) discourses and legal definitions, rather than by forming himself, speaking himself, as possessor of that power.
Let's attend closely to the rhetoric of Abelard's account of his two emasculations. The first act was performed by Fulbert and his kinsmen and relatives (consanguinei seu affines):
They plotted against me with fierce indignation, and on a certain night while I was at rest and sleeping in a private room in my lodgings, they bribed one of my servants with money, and then took the cruelest and most shameful revenge, which the whole world heard about with the greatest wonder; they cut off those parts of my body by which I committed what they complained about.[16]
This is also the language of rape: the invasion of an inner, hidden place (in secreta hospicii mei camera) while he was helplessly asleep. Castration was often used as a punishment for crimes against the orderly traffic in women, where specific configurations of patriarchal culture are maintained by men controlling other men's access to women by strict adherence to class and rank. Fulbert would have assumed the rights of ownership over Heloise's body, and thus the castration of Abelard would have been an act of power over Abelard for violating the traffic laws.
The narrative of his second emasculation, his condemnation and book burning at the Council of Soissons in 1121, is even more revealing. Abelard's political enemies staged a deceptive hearing on his book, On the Unity and Trinity of God, which turned into an illegal trial on his beliefs. It's clear that this council had only one purpose--stripping Abelard of his authority and reputation, a social emasculation. At the end of the lengthy narrative of the conflicts and events at this council--the story takes up two large sections in the letter--Abelard concludes with a rhetorical crescendo in which he not only employs the language of rape and castration, but chooses a female exemplum to identify with.[17] First, he was forced to perform what he describes as a self-emasculation: "without any questioning or discussion they compelled me to throw my book into the fire with my own hands (propria manu)". Abelard's libidinal investment in his book clearly marks it as an extension of his own body as well as his inner masculine virtus. Then Abelard deploys the counter-discourse of the feminine, which uses the victimization to unmask an injustice parading as self-evident authority. At the moment in the narrative when Abelard could have chosen any exemplum, Samson perhaps, he represents himself as identifying with Susanna, an exemplum of an innocent woman facing male accusers.[18] This silencing and book-burning is finally described more like a rape than a castration: "I wept much more for the harm done to my reputation (fame) than to my body... this open violence had come upon me only because of the purity of my intentions and love of our faith which had compelled me to write."[19]
This event is the turning point in the letter for self-representation. Although Abelard appropriates the subject position of the feminine elsewhere in the letter, after the narrative of his humiliation at the Council of Soissons he shifts to an identification with a different masculine image, Origen and Jerome, who became, in medieval cultural symbolization, paternal and almost asexual authorities who directed communities of women and retained phallic power while denying the sexual use of the penis (chastity and self-castration). Abelard's ego-ideal at the close of the letter is that of father, the paternal provider of a community of daughters, Heloise's convent of the Paraclete.
But Abelard's letter was only the beginning of an eight-year campaign to reinvent himself and demonstrate his inner masculinity. I'd like to conclude by advancing a hypothesis that Abelard, stung by the satire and personal attacks of enemies like Fulco and Roscelin and resisting the subject position constructed for him by those in power, sought to defend himself by an apology for the masculine intellect in his Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian.[20] This work can be read as part of a second siege on Paris and it marks a revoking of the victimized feminine position. In this work Abelard represents himself as an arbiter of all philosophical and religious arguments, a supreme Christian philosophus. The Dialogue was probably written between 1136-1139, a time of great literary activity for Abelard and a moment of renewed intellectual influence before his final political emasculation by Bernard of Clairvaux at the infamous Council of Sens (1140). During these years Abelard had returned to teaching in Paris and was also writing to Heloise, collaborating on the building of the Paraclete community, and reinventing his identity as an authoritative teacher. Written shortly after his Theologia Christiana and shortly before his Ethica, the Dialogue can be read as part of an intellectual and moral defense addressed to the academic community centered at Paris.[21]
The dialogue is framed by an attempt to reconcile natural law and Christian ethics, and the greater part of the work is devoted to a synthesis of classical and Christian approaches to the human virtues.[22] But the first part of the dialogue is a discussion of the Jewish law and the meaning of circumcision. Since so much of the Philosopher's dialogue with the Jew is concerned with circumcision, we can read here an anxiety about genital privation and emasculation refracted onto a debate about law, the sign of circumcision, and the hierarchy of mind and soul over body.
Abelard represents the Jew defending the Law based on its difficulty: "Who would not abhor or fear to receive the very sacrament of our circumcision on account of both the shame and the pain? What part of the human body is as tender as the one on which the Law inflicts its wound and also on small infants themselves?"[23] Answering the Philosopher's attack on the irrationality of circumcision, the Jew defends circumcision as a signum, God's indelible mark on the body of his people: the sign of circumcision is so abhorrent to the gentiles that if Jews tried to win over their women, none of the women would give their consent, believing that the truncating of this member is the height of foulness.[24] Circumcision is a signum, a mark or sign inscribed on the body; once done it cannot be undone (aboleri iam non potest). Jews are sanctified to the Lord through the member and instrument of generation, and removing the front part of this member symbolizes an internal cutting off from the beliefs and practices of the Chaldeans.[25] Abelard here stresses the inner, spiritual and mental state, which he argues is more important than the wholeness of the body.
In the second part of the dialogue, the Philosopher defends a philosophical voluptas, not the enjoyment of carnal enticements but a certain inner peace of the soul (quadam interiorem animae tranquillitatem).[26] Since the Philosopher functions as Abelard's persona, this affirmation of inner peace as the goal of philosophy is nothing less than Abelard's attempt to transcend external and bodily deprivations. Inner peace of the soul comes from control of the flesh (domandae carnis exercitium)[27] and the removal of suffering (ab omni passione immunis).[28] The Philosopher is thus Abelard's other ego-ideal, an imagined wholeness, self-absorbed in philosophical voluptas.
Abelard's dialogue can thus be read as an explicit statement of his ongoing project of remasculinization. The attacks by the likes of Roscelin and Fulco are rendered impotent in the face of Abelard's superior intellect and force of argument. For Abelard, the male body is only a shell for the masculine intellect, and the wholeness of one's mind and soul transcend the physical state of the body. Abelard spent nearly two decades fashioning new images of wholeness, new substitutes for the social body he was never invited to rejoin. But throughout his career, Abelard clearly advanced a performative model of masculinity: a man is he who acts like a man, using superior intellect and discourse as the ultimate tools of penetration.
http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/conf/cs95/papers/irvine.html
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