News......

It has been a long time since I posted in my blog; the good news is that we have opened our webpage idpr.org.in; slowly we are trying to update it and hopefully we will complete it by the first week of January. The second good news is that we have translated Tarshi's Blue Book and Red Book in Oriya (Neela Bahi and Naali Bahi) and these are available with us in our office, anybody interested can contact idpr office at 2742068 or email us at idpr.bhubaneswar@gmail.com.

In 2010 we are planning to establish our training resource centre hope this initiative will be of use to all of us working in the development sector; please provide us with feedback on how you would like this training and resource centre to be; what key training and capacity building initiatives can we take up.

Here is wishing all of a Very Happy New Year. Happy 2010 to all our well wishers.

ODISHA-One

Sunanda: My Friend

When I was a child of eight I had a friend called Sunanda, she adored me. Everybody in our school had a problem with her as she never seemed normal. First of all she never seemed like a girl, I mean she was tall like a reed had a very sweet smile She never developed like a girl with breasts or had a figure like a girl. She was fast like a boy and won all races in our school, she could throw the discus the farthest. she had a booming voice and boys and girls would stop in their tracks when she would stay attention during parades.

She loved being a part my friend. She had the tallest story to tell; and I loved her stories and laughed out the loudest. There were a lot of jeers and comments and snide remarks about her looks, the way she walked the way she talked the way she waved her hand. Her parents treated her like a girl. I adored her, and was very protective about her. Our classmates both boys and girls were mortally afraid to say anything against her or bully her as they were terribly afraid of my temper I was very short tempered and could hit anybody twice my size without bothering to look or be afraid of whether s/he would hit me back. All my friends/enemies/others would scatter away when I had one of my temper tantrums, as I would hit out at anyone who stood besides me, and come out with the choicest of abuses and gaalis; in fact two people who could stop my rampage were my mother and Sunanda.

Sunanda did not have her periods when all of us did and that was the talk of our small town, her mother kept assuring her that she would have it and some girls had it late. And i would console her saying that I was very happy for her. I would always tell her what is the need for periods, it is a real pain; and she would look at me sadly.

Slowly she withdrew from all her friends except for me. After high school exams she studied at home and stopped going to college. I carried on with my life but always had time for her. I left the town, but returned back every summer to her and we would sit for hours and bitch about everybody. Sunanda would wait every summer for me. She was never seen out of the house. I got married she was the happiest; when I had my first daughter she was the happiest, and gave hand crafted rugs, bedsheets and tiny smock dresses for my daughter; she was just wonderful with the baby; Sunanda would have made a wonderful mother.

I lost Sunanda to time; now I am not sure where she is. Now that I am working in this field I know more about her and wish I could help her and support her.

Sunanda is a hermaphrodite(this was something I understood after starting to work in this sector) which currently has been replaced by the term intersexual. That is humans with typical reproductive organs but typical clitoris/penis. People with Intersex conditions sometimes chose to live exclusively as one sex or the other trying to blend into the sex they identify with more closely. Some people who are intersexed outwardly appear completely female or male already without realizing they are intersexed. Other kinds of Intersex conditions are identified immediately at birth because those with the conditions have a sexual organ larger than a clitoris and smaller than a penis.

Working in the field of Sexual Reproductive Health and HIV&AIDS you hear on stigma and discrimination and you realize how deep rooted heterosexism is. We talk about respect, dignity and tolerance but somehow it is not evidence in our day to day life. Sunanda was beautiful but had a hard life, now when i read about Caster Semenya she reminds me of Sunanda. We keep debating about her gender whether she should compete or not which gender should she belong to. When Caster smiles it is pure sunshine, same as Sunanda but who cares.

Disability and Sexual Reproductive Health & Rights.

Yesterday,"We the People" in NDTV by Barkha Dutt was probably watched by many, and it was really impressive how the supreme court judgement could bring out such strong emotions on isssues of disability, pregnancy, choices, rape, abortion etc amongst the participants. Majority of them do believe that an woman should exercise her choice on whether she should have a baby or abort her foetus, but whether a women with disability has a right to exercise her choice is a contentious issue.

Probably majority of them felt that the women with disability should not reproduce, some of them openly spoke out against it. This feeling has a lot to do with the fact that many of us do believe that people with disability 'can not' feel, sense, love, have pleasure through sexual relationship, enjoy sexual relations, have the pleasure of pregnancy, having a baby, raising a child etc. This kind of belief has a lot to do with the fact that there is little awareness about disability and the extent to which disability impacts on a individual's life and on his/her sexuality.

One thing that we should know is people with disabilty do not form a homogenous group. Our tendency to club all kinds of disability together, and speak for all of them is because of our lack of awareness. DIfferent disability have varying implications with respect to sexuality. The young women in question was mildly mental retarded and evidence suggests that if she were given proper environment, she could live her life like all 'normal people'. The word mental retardation is substituted worldwide with "intellectual disability" and "person with developmental delays". Retarded persons are slow learners, however they are not insane or of unsound mind....

It was humbling to see a women with disability talk about her life in the same show.

I am learning and hope that all of us learn to integrate disability and sexuality in our project management cycles and into our project activities as we constantly talk of working with vulnerable and marginalized and I can't think of anybody more marginalized and more vulnerable than people with disability.

Sarita

Supreme court's pro-life decision.

NEW DELHI, India -- In a landmark pro-life decision, the Supreme Court on July 21 allowed a 20-year-old mentally challenged orphan girl to keep her pregnancy resulting from a sexual assault and set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling ordering medical termination.

The HC had ordered medical termination of the girl's 19-week-old pregnancy after coming to the conclusion that since she was unable to take care of herself, she should be relieved of the pregnancy given the state of her condition — both mental and physical.

The HC was guided by opinion of two panels of doctors, including psychiatrists and gynaecologists, which assessed the rape victim to be of the mental age of 7-9 years. They had expressed concern over her ability to undertake pre-natal and post-natal precautions and care, though they were unanimous that she was physically fit to carry the pregnancy and deliver the child.

The SC allowed her to keep the pregnancy as it was in an advanced stage and the National Trust for Mentally Retarded pledged to take care of the mother and child for the rest of their lives.

Initially, a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, which in the past has dismissed PILs seeking abolition of death sentence, appeared to be torn between the mentally retarded girl's right to motherhood and its apprehension about the child's future.

The unfortunate girl's case was presented in a legal docket scribbled with emotional arguments by counsel Tanu Bedi, who sought the SC's intervention to allow the orphan girl to have her first blood relation through the child she was carrying.

"If her mental age is a consideration for the judiciary to think that she cannot take care of her baby, why should poor women, who are found lacking in bringing up their children, be allowed to become mothers," Bedi asked.

Appearing for Chandigarh administration, counsel Anupam Gupta referred to the support flowing in from NGOs for the rape victim and said it would be wrong to get swayed by the response of NGOs as there was no guarantee that they would continue doing so for the entire lifetime of the girl and the child after it was born.

When the court asked why the state could not take care of the mother and child, Gupta said, "Let's not get swept off our feet by euphoria shown by NGOs to support the mentally challenged girl and let's not be blind to the ground reality. Even normal parents take it as a setback if their child turns out to be mentally challenged. If the mentally challenged girl's child turns out to be mentally retarded, then will the NGOs be there to lend support constantly and continuously?"

The Bench conceded that the girl was not in a position to take care of herself and her child. "The foetus is fine and does not appear to suffer from any deformity. We cannot say for sure whether the child will be mentally retarded. The pregnancy is in an advanced stage. Moreover, if someone agrees to take care of the mother through the pregnancy and the child when it is born, then why should she be deprived of motherhood," it said.

Times of India

Article 377

The judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi in affirming rights of homosexuals is a great landmark decision; it has come through after a long and painful struggle of the LGBT groups and organizations, and support groups. But this is not the end; this is just the beginning for a greater struggle for full rights, dignity and complete acceptance by the majority, families, and society at large. The struggle will come to an end only when gays do not have feel shy, guilty, defensive, and give endless justifications on their sexuality and sexual orientation to the other side, i.e. Heterosexuals who are in majority, and sitting on the seat of judgment.

Heterosexuals are lucky that way; they do not have to struggle for their sexuality and sexual orientation and their body and mind all the time. When a heterosexual goes to sex workers, it may considered as illegal but it not considered as unnatural because it involves vaginal sex. Sex between homosexuals is so easily brushed aside as unnatural, unethical, and result of some sickness. In such circumstances, homosexuals because of their numerical shortfall, have to fight for their rights and dignity.

The judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi has generated strong reactions for various religious groups, organizations, and political groups. Some are vociferous in their criticism and some are cautious. Some condemn it, and some pass it over, and gays celebrate it. Media have brought many debates to the surface now.

HETEROSEXUALS PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME AND HEAR THE OTHER SIDE

Whether you believe in homosexuality or not, whether you like it or not or whether you find it natural or not, same sex relationship exists and has very explicitly and visually been shown in the sculpture of the much revered temples of India and has been there for ages. Social, religious and political leaders (who are the opinion makers) who represent people frame homosexuality as “sin”, “unnatural” and “immoral”. It is easy, convenient, and safe to follow these leaders, and stick to age old beliefs perpetuated for so long.

And when such collective consciousness reigns and rules the society, there is little scope for new understanding, tolerance and acceptance. And when new leaders emerge, they also follow this mass consciousness as it is easy, convenient and safe. We have heard stories about ministers, writers, intellectuals who are homosexuals. And they are truly loved by the people, their sexual orientation was never an issue, If tomorrow a Prime Minister, or a Chief Minister, a religious leader gives his stamp of approval to homosexual relationship then it will have great impact. However very few are willing to do so.

In this context, the judgment of the Hon’ble High Court is encouraging, and keeps the hope alive that there is hope within preexisting sexual stereotypes. Social approval may be the ultimate success of the LGBT movement, but a legal approval has set some momentum to the movement. The judgment of the Hon’ble high Court has taken a great step; it has at least opened the closed box of Article377 for scrutiny and new thinking of the majority.

Documentary: Dinare Basanta Aame aau Raati Re Basanti.

Today all of us at idpr and Sakha saw a very lovely documentary which had been previously shown in OTV by Debadutt Choudary and Bhibuti Rath. it was a very good effort and was appreciated by all of us. The members of Sakha after seeing it could relate to the stories of neglect, prejudice, biases perpetrated by family members and community.

The documentary was appreciated by all, except for one concern raised by Meera who felt that the title of the documentary, "Dinare Basanta aame raati re basanti" (which when translated in english was, 'in morning we are Basant (Male) and at night we are Basanti(Female)') was inappropriate as she felt that there is a lot of stigma associated with it, and no transgender or hijra would like to be a man in morning and women in the darkness of night. This video was developed by Devdutt Choudary and Bibhuti Rath, both can be reached in OTV, if you have any comments on the video or require more information on how to access the entire documentary please contact: devsruti75@gmail.com and bibhuti_rath@yahoo.co.in

My Perspective

If individuals would like to be in same sex relationship, then why is it so difficult for us(heterosexuals) to accept it. How is it going to threaten us (heterosexuals), disrupt the social fabric and corrupt our society? Very few deeply think about on their own and rather carry with the thoughts of spokespersons from various religious/political groups. Accepting them as they are also is another attribute of democracy, and people who love democratic values must also understand the deeper meanings of the concept. Democracy is not the tyranny or the dominance of the majority, it is the dignified acceptance of each other, and an willingness to understand each other.

And for our gay friends.

Let me say! the more you share your thoughts with all, it will also open up our thinking. Heterosexuals learning may be slow, but keep sharing this is the only way barriers will be broken.

Bijoy