History
The famed festival for the deity Aarvan, the deity worshiped by transgender and third gender people, is descended from folklore established prior to the advent of the Tamil-Brahmi script [9] and celebrated at Kuvagam. [10] The story behind the festival is often heard in modern times through the Hindu epic Mahabharata, but more commonly as a separate folklore in Tamil culture. [11]
The Manimekalai a literary work, written by Buddhist poet Satthanar, that told the story of how Buddha would show compassion to people of a city, which included a man cross-dressing and a Jain monk as main characters. [12]
Age of Empires
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Several religious statues created during this period, such as at Ranganathaswamy Temple, [13] Srirangam, some of which depict explicit homosexual acts, are attributed to the Chola era. The temple at Brihadisvara also has examples of religious references to transgender people and third genders through depictions of Ardhanarishvara. [9]
European colonialism (1500 CE)
A number of artwork and records exist that can attest to the freedoms enjoyed by homosexuals prior to colonialism, including religious statues such as the ones at Tanjore. [14] [15] Similarly Buddhism has no significant history of condemnation of homosexual acts. [16]
Homosexuals are catered for in the Kama Sutra and other Hindu medical books. [17] The Kama Sutra was written around the 2nd century AD by Vātsyāyana, and it says that homosexual sex "is to be engaged in and enjoyed for its own sake as one of the arts" and devotes a chapter to describing the acts of homosexual and third gender sex. [18]
Estado da Índia
Portuguese India had territorial control over only certain parts of modern-day India's western coast and the island of Lanka, with the remaining being settlements in Southern India (including Tamil Nadu), with these settlements and the island of Lanka being captured (or transferred) to the British later on. [19]
Upon arrival to the island of Sri Lanka, the Portuguese invaders painted the local population as "backwards" and "sinful", explaining that the "horror" of homosexuality was present on the island, characterizing the island's king as being frightening for allowing the act of sodomy on the island, and even accounting that the king himself partook in gay sex. [20]
British Empire and British East India Company
"As modernity, nationalism, and colonial and bourgeois morality began to sweep definitively across India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, performing arts changed radically"
Anna Morcom
It was during this era of British colonial rule that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was implemented by the British Raj. Ruth Vanita, a scholar and historian, firmly defines the nineteenth century as ‘a crucial period of transition when a minor strand of pre-colonial homophobia became the dominant voice in colonial and post-colonial mainstream discourses’, and the CERA explains that the set of laws were part of colonial efforts to impose its values on its colony’. [21]
The indigenous arts suffered during this era, as ethnomusicologist Anna Morcom points out, 'As modernity, nationalism, and colonial and bourgeois morality began to sweep definitively across India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, performing arts changed radically' with anything considered morally 'repulsive' such as erotic dancing and gender fluidity being swept under the carpet. [21]
Établissements français dans l'Inde
French establishments in Tamil Nadu included Pondichéry, Karikal and Yanaon on the Coromandel Coast. [22] The act of homosexual sex would have been decriminalized in the late 18th century as part of the Napoleonic Code's view on the privacy of people and state intervention, [23] which applied in the French colonies of India at the time. [24]
Recent history
Chennai-born Anjali Gopalan, whose father was a Tamil Hindu and mother was a Sikh, was one of South Asia's pioneers in providing support for sexual minorities. She established the Naz Foundation in the early 1990s in order to help sufferers deal with HIV, and also to act as a vehicle to lobby for sexual minorities. The organization would later go on to become a major force in Indian politics, persuading the Supreme Court of India to decriminalize gay sex. [25]
Transgender people had long been afforded acceptance in Tamil Nadu and by 2008 both transgender people and third genders had been recognized by the state. [26] The majority of dominant political parties in Tamil Nadu have contested elections with transgender politicians. [27]
The Tamil Nadu High Court has complained to the Centre that sexual minorities are not being provided their basic rights, suggesting that the law criminalizing gay sex should be reformed and that sexual minorities should be a reserved group. [28] There have also been several politicians from the Tamil BJP and RSS attending and supporting the welfare of sexual minorities. [29]
Key events
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2017) |
- 1862: the current colonial law criminalizing homosexual sex is implemented by Lord Thomas Macaulay through the Indian Penal Code in British India and the Straits Settlements.
- 1990: Tamil Nadu government forcibly tested several hundred sex workers and then locked up 800 infected women for several months. [30]
- 2008: a transgender welfare board is established by the Government of Tamil Nadu. [31]
- 2009: a gay wedding is held in South Africa according to Hindu rites. [32]
- 2009: the High Court of Delhi removed the colonial-era law banning homosexuality
- 2009: the Hindu Council of Britain announced that Hinduism did not condemn homosexuality. [14]
- 2013: the Supreme Court of India rules that constitutional law relating to a ban on gay sex should be required to be subject to a constitutional reform procedures unless superseded by higher law, and restores the colonial era law banned gay sex. [33]
- Gopi Shankar Madurai, a 25 years old gender activist made a bid to contest as one of the youngest candidates in the Tamil Nadu Assembly election and also the first openly intersex and genderqueer person to do so. Ze secured 14th place out of 21 candidates by securing 1% vote. [34] [35] [36] [37]
- A Hindu gay wedding in Bali, Indonesia, is investigated by Indonesian police. [38]
- 2017 Autumn: The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka proclaims that it would be inappropriate to impose custodial sentences in a situation where two parties have consensual sex even went criminalized by law. [39]
- 2018: The Supreme Court of India proclaims that Section 377A should not cover homosexual sex between two consenting adults. [40]
- 2019: On 22 April 2019 the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) passed a landmark judgment upheld the marriage rights of Transwomen & Intersex women under Hindu Marriage Law [41] and issued direction to ban Sex-Selective Surgeries on Intersex Infants [42]
note: bold typeface indicates that the event is widely considered to be most significant and landmark.
