International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 6, Issue 3, Jun 2016, 29-34
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd

EXPLORING KINESTHETICS OF GENDER IDENTITY THROUGH

SELECT TRANSGENDER AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
TANUPRIYA1 & DHISHNA PANNIKOT2
1
2

Research Scholar, School of Management National Institute of Technology Karnataka Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka, India

Assistant Professor, School of Management National Institute of Technology Karnataka Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka, India
ABSTRACT
Sex is a biological phenomenon whereas gender is a social construct. This definition is the key on which the
whole notions of individual identity is constructed. This notion tries to bring in cultural stability by assigning certain
codes of behaviour and mannerisms that identifies one individual from the other. This identity as De Beauvoir, a gender
critic, rightly mentions, include a lot of performativity within its texture. Kinesics is the study of body language and
Kinesthetics is the term that is used to refer to any learning that includes the movement of the body that helps in better
understanding compared to any class room teaching. Hence, this journey of learning ones self, based on the body
performances moves away from the already established and constructed notions of identity, and turns towards the

seen in different genders, in their gestures, postures, movement and general body comportment. This distinguishes any
human being and creates a space for each individual. This space restricts and occasionally give spaces for ones own
expression. Thus, there is an unprecedented discipline that is directed against any gender through their daily
performance. This paper will try to trace the Kinesthetics of third gender or the transgender. The study would further try
to locate the fissures in imitation specifically through the depictions of third genders in their autobiographies.
KEYWORDS: Transgender, Performativity, Kinesics, Kinesthetics

Original Article

understanding of the body which is the sole basis of learning about oneself. There are differences as could be evidently

Received: May 10, 2016; Accepted: May 23, 2016; Published: Jun 09, 2016; Paper Id.: IJELJUN201605

INTRODUCTION
The notion of sex and gender, is defined by APA (American Psychological Association), where sex
refers to a persons biological status categorized as male or female whereas gender refers to the attitudes,
feelings and behavior that a culture associates with a persons biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with the
cultural expectations is referred to as gender-normative and behaviours that are viewed as incompatible with these
expectations constitute gender non-conformity. This is the view on which the whole conception of identity of an
individual as a whole is constructed. Apart from this cultural and biological perspective on which an individuals
identity is constructed, there lies another important distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation,
which decides the identity an individual wants to perform i.e. deviated identity or a culturally constructed one.
Gender identity defines ones intrinsic sense as male, female, transgender or any other identified
category. Judith Butler, an American gender theorist in her book Gender Trouble questions the constructed cultural
notions of gender. She questions:
Is there a gender which persons are said to have, or is it an essential attribute that a person is said to be,
as implied in the question What gender are you? When feminine theorists claim that gender is the
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cultural interpretation of sex or that gender is culturally constructed, what is the manner or mechanism of this
construction? If gender is constructed, could it be constructed differently, or does its constructedness imply some
form of social determinism, foreclosing the possibility of agency and transformation? (Gender Trouble, 7).
Another query that requires equal attention is on the sexual orientation that refers to the sex of those who are
sexually and romantically attracted. Categories of sexual orientation include attraction to the members of ones own sex
(gay or lesbians), attraction to members of the other sex (heterosexuals), and attraction to members of both sexes
(bisexuals). Gay Studies and Queer theory address the political ramifications, social predicaments, advantages and dangers
of culturally fixed categories of sexual identities and the ways in which they may be performed, transgressed and queered,
while queer theory has been claimed as giving voice to those elided or marginalised by gay and lesbian
studiesbisexuals, transsexuals, sadomasochists (Goldman 525-26). The term queer includes those who openly wear
sexual identities like lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and those who use indigenous terms like hijra, kothi,
panthis to describe themselves. (Kumar 8)
Third gender or transgender is an umbrella term used for a community of people known as the hijras, also
described variously as eunuchs, transvestites, homosexuals, bisexuals, hermaphrodites, androgynes, transsexuals, and
gynemimetics. They are also referred to as a people who are intersexed, emasculated, impotent, transgendered, castrated,
effeminate, or somehow sexually dysfunctional. Hijras, aravanis, jogappa, khusra, kojja, kinnar, napunsaka, akwa, are the
different variations of their names. Serene Nanda in her ethnographic study on Hijras in India has called them as Neither
Man nor Women. Transgender (MTF) can be described as the one with masculine physique with feminine clothes, garish
make up, a coquettish walk, loud attitude and the trademark clap. They use overtly sexual and vulgar language when
people deny giving them money as begging is their dominant source of income.
Analysis and Interpretation
The effeminacy in a cisgender man begins from childhood, once their constant urge is to wear feminine clothes
and makeup, growing hair and interest in dancing as seen from the autobiography of Vidya. In Living Smile Vidya, earlier
referred to as Saravaran was born as a male and was always interested in feminine artifices. As is evident from her
autobiography where Vidya says: I was six or seven then. I usually locked myself in the house once all of them had gone
out, put on girls clothes and sang and danced like a girl. I loved it (Vidya 3). Human beings are born as male or female
but not masculine or feminine. Femininity is an artifice, an achievement, a mode of enacting and re-enacting received
gender norms which surface as so many styles of flesh (Butler 11). There are various disciplinary practices that produce a
transgender body which includes gesture and appearance, is recognizably feminine. There are various fissures in imitating
female bodies, as transgender bodies are primarily male bodies while taking into consideration Male to Female
transgenders. They aim to produce a body of a certain size and general configuration, those that bring forth from this body
a specific repertoire of gestures, postures, and movements and those that are directed toward the display of this body as an
ornamented surface. Hence, studying the body is an area where much research has to be done in the context of
understanding once sexual identity and orientation.
There are significant gender differences in gesture, posture, movement and general bodily comportment: women
are far more restricted than men in their manner of movement and in their spatiality. In the case of transgenders, they adopt
feminine behaviours, mannerisms, body language and clothing style of women to portray their feminine side which is
hidden in a male body. Vidya in her autobiography mentions: My womanhood was raging to destroy my manhood,
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.4049

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 6.1

Exploring Kinesthetics of Gender Identity through Select Transgender Autobiographies

31

incinerating all the advice I was receiving. Though the attire and outlook is typically feminine with excessive use of
makeup their body language that they seem to imitate doesnt fit perfectly. There are fissures in imitating women as they
are not able to become a perfect model of femininity. They portray femininity, to approximate female appearance
through their clothes but the way they walk, behaviour and mannerism, which are not typically female become an imitation
of femininity, which sometimes appear as a parody. As Judith Butler mentions: a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid
regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, [become] a natural sort of being. (Butler
33)
Judith Butler outlines a genealogical critique, arguing for the understanding of (all) gender as performance and
relatedly, for parody as the most effective strategy for subverting the fixed binary frame of gender. For Butler,
Our identities, gendered and otherwise, do not express some authentic inner core self but are the dramatic effect
(rather than the cause) of our performances. (Bordo 168) Gayatri Reddy, an ethnographer, states in the context of
performativity that: all identities are performative, conscious parody of such performance is what subverts both the
category and lived reality of gender (Reddy 135). She further questions the parodic nature of performance and says:
Who or what decides the parodic nature of a performance? In earlier works of Butler, Discourse is viewed as
foundational; the body in many ways is seen as thoroughly text. Hence, in a Butlerian reading, determinations
of the parodic or subversive nature of a particular act or performance can presumably be read from the textual
surface of the body, without a necessary contextualization of such meanings through history, lives experience,
materiality and cultural or institutional context. (Reddy 135)
The most important marker of hijra identity and femininity/beauty is their clothing. As Umberto Eco rightly
states, I speak through my clothes. (Semiotics 57) Although he was alluding more generally to the semiotic potential of
all objects, Ecos statement could be referring directly to hijras emphatic use of clothing style. Hijras are identified by
society, and often identify themselves through and by their adoption of womens clothing. (Reddy 131) Butler has also
talked about the wardrobe analogy in this context where she argues that ones gender is performatively constituted in the
same way that ones choice of clothes is curtailed, perhaps even predetermined, by the society, context, economy and so on
within which one is situated. Gayatri Reddy in her ethnography With respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identiy in South
India makes clear that:
Hijras also engage in several less harmful practices to erase vestiges of masculinity and enhance their femininity.
One of the most common of these is the use of tweezers (cimte) to pluck out their facial hair. All hijras are
required to tweeze their facial hair. The leaders impose a fine on those who disregard the rule. The reason for this
painful practice is that facial hair does not grow back as quickly and coarsely as it would if shaved (Reddy 124).
This forced performativity of feminine appearance for a transgender who was earlier a male is a difficult process
apart from undergoing the nirvana operation and ingesting dozens of Sunday- Monday golis among other hormonal
substances. (Kullick) The hijras adoption of womens clothing is the single most visible marker of their identity. Their
gender- ambiguous appearance and masculine physique makes them physically distinguishable from women. Many hijras
adopt an exaggerated feminine hip-swaying walk, grow their hair long, and most important, all of them wear saris
(Reddy 131). Reddy critiques this identity and names it tailored identites. This tailored identity could be visibly seen in
Vidya, an Indian transgender, in her autobiography I am Vidya where she describes: When I was in surroundings other
than home or college I generally felt quite free to be myself. On such occasions, I walked swaying my hips like a woman,
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sat with my legs crossed stylishly or rearranged my hair in a feminine way when the wind blew it across my forehead.
(Vidya 44) It is at this context that one relates the ideas of Roland Barthes where he has identified the difference between
intentional and innocent signification where the latter is expressive of normality as opposed to deviance, i.e.,
[ensembles which] are distinguished by their relative invisibility, their appropriateness, their naturalness,... intentional
communication is of a different order.... It is a visible construction, a loaded choice. It directs attention to itself; it gives
itself to be read

(Hebdige 101). As such, the visible ensembles of spectacular subcultures, by being obviously

fabricated, go against the grain of a mainstream culture whose principle defining feature according to Barthes is a
tendency to masquerade as nature,... to translate the reality of the world into an image of the world which in turn presents
itself as if composed according to the evident laws of the natural order (Barthes 54). Hijras signification is that of an
intentional as opposite of the innocent one which is followed by the main stream society. They adopt feminine lifestyle and
mannerisms to craft themselves into a female body.
Laxmi, a transgender, while describing her feminine traits in her autobiography mentions that people used to get
uncomfortable when she used to dance flawlessly on stage. She states in her autobiography Me Hijra Me Laxmi:
In patriarchal, misogynistic culture such as ours, dancing is seen as a womanly pursuit...They couldnt see the
cathartic and therapeutic effect that my art had on me. All they could see was that though I was a man, my body
language was that of a woman. (Laxmi 4)
Dancing saved me. It was the therapy... In a way, it was my dancing, complete with my feminine movements of
the waist, that contributed to my being thought of as effeminate. (Laxmi 23)
Hence, body plays a crucial role in determining the gender identity for a transgender. This could be the reason for
the transgenders to go for the forced imitation of the cisgender role of being a male or a female.

CONCLUSIONS
Transgender kinesthetics is a complex area worth studying and examining as its vistas are expanded beyond the
external appearance, the psyche and the body and there are unexplored areas of body movements and gestures that add on
the trans identity to the third gender. The masculinity or femininity that a gender non-confirmative person takes up, in
order to closely associate with a different gender identity, somehow or the other turns out to be a myth as the gender
constructions are not just limited within the body of the person but its roots are some where lying within the social
construct. Hence, gender Kinesthetics is a means only towards gender relativity.
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Barthes, Roland. (1972). Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. Hill and Wang,. New York.

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Bordo, Susan. (1996). Social Constrution, Sexuality and Politics. Women and Politics. 12(1):73-78.

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Butler,Judith. (1991). Imitation and gender insubordination. In D. Fuss (Ed.), Inside/out: Lesbian theories/gay theories.
Routledge. New York

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Eco, Umberto. (1975). A Theory of Semiotics. India University Press. Bloomington

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Goldman, Jane. (1999). Introduction: Works on the Wild(e) SidePerforming, Transgressing, Queering. Ed. Julian Wolfrey.
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Impact Factor (JCC): 4.4049

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 6.1

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Hebdige, D. (1991). Subculture: The Meaning of Style: Routledge,. London.

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