Enactment of gender and performing selves: a study on Hijra performativity

Abstract

‘Sex' is understood as ‘anatomically' and ‘biologically’ inherent in an individual and is mirrored through 'gender' and its signifiers. The contested binaries of male and female are associated with the perceptions of an individual's level of conformity to the vexed ideals of ‘masculinity' and ‘femininity', but a ‘trans' identity finds its expression outside these assigned gender dichotomous roles and find its expression in embodied and bodied practices. The aspects of masculinity and femininity are seen as ‘performative' which can be reflected through ‘sign vehicle' and ‘body idiom', the terms used by Sociologist Erving Goffman.