With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India
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With Respect to Sex is an intimate ethnography that offers a provocative account of sexual and social difference in India. The subjects of this study are hijras or the "third sex" of India, individuals who occupy a unique, liminal space between male and female, sacred and profane. Hijras are men who sacrifice their genitalia to a goddess in return for the power to confer fertility on newlyweds and newborn children, a ritual role they are respected for, at the same time as they are stigmatized for their ambiguous sexuality. By focusing on the hijra community, Reddy sheds new light on Indian society and the intricate negotiations of identity across various domains of everyday life. Further, by reframing hijra identity through the local economy of respect, this ethnography highlights the complex relationships between local and global, sexual and moral, economies. This book will be regarded as the definitive work on hijras, one that will be of enormous interest to anthropologists, students of South Asian culture, and specialists in gender, queer, and sexuality studies. Journal of the History of Sexuality "This book is an important and significant one. Not only does it add to the field of academic accounts of the hijira and anthropology, but it contributes to gender and sexuality studies."— Shane Gannon
1The ethnographic setting12Hijras, individuality, and Izzat173Cartographies of sex/gender444Sacred legitimization, corporeal practice : Hindu iconography and Hijra renunciation785"We are all Musalmans now" : religious practice, positionality, and Hijra/Muslim identification996(Per)formative selves : the production of gender1217"Our people" : kinship, marriage, and the family1428Shifting contexts, fluid identities1869Crossing "lines" of subjectivity : transnational movements and gay identifications21110Conclusion223
