Pride Month: Speaking Back Hijra Curses and Sexual Insults as Survival Strategies

What does one imagine when thinking about a Hijra in public spaces? Loud taalis, hands reaching out to ask alms, and an apparent ‘otherness’? These misplaced imaginaries of a hijra paint them as people lacking decency, using lewd sexual insults and cursing in public. I write this piece as a contradiction to these stereotypes. In public spaces where hijras often face systemic violence (including sexual harassment and police brutality), the cultivation of an ‘aggressive’ or ‘scandalous’ public persona serves them as both a deterrent and an armour.

But first, it is important to address that hijra is a community-based identity acquired through a complex ritualistic process. It is best to clarify that ‘Transgender’ is not an anglophonic synonym of Hijra. Transgender identity represents several related but independent gender-diverse identities, and hijra is one of them. The hijra community is one of the longest-standing gender diverse subcultures in South Asia. Organised on the principles of solidarity and mutual aid, the hijra community have been historically sustaining alternate kinship structures for young and ageing (albeit with intercommunity hierarchies). Besides, the credit for transgender visibility in India is perhaps best given to the hijra community for strategically raising their verbal ante on various platforms to capture and hold attention.

The public use of curses and sexual insults by the hijra community transcends the realm of behavioural particularities. It is a deliberate, performative act of resistance against the colonial history of criminality that continues to persist. Ritualised insults and transgressive behaviour in the everydayness of hijra lives, particularly those dependent on a survival economy (like begging, sex work and so on), fulfil both cathartic and structural roles. Their use of curses and sexual insults is not merely about speaking back outside the line of ‘decency’—it is about provoking shock, demanding acknowledgement, and asserting difference as a source of empowerment.

While insults and vilifications are seen as a threat to public order, for hijras, it is a way to declare their presence. This piece speaks to the imperative to move beyond assimilationist frameworks by utilising language as a means of discursive expression. It is crucial to rethink justice for gender-diverse communities facing abandonment from natal families, economic precarity and structural segregation. This is especially crucial for those facing intersecting layers of marginalisation, necessitating advocacy efforts grounded in tangible effectiveness. By transforming sexual insults into a strategic mode of visibility, hijras challenge exclusionary norms, generating dialogues for contextually responsive interventions. The piece is derived from my recent engagement with the hijra community in Bihar and a few adjoining regions of Uttar Pradesh. Here, I perceive hijra curses and verbal insults as a challenge to mainstream normativity that underscores the conflict between ‘public decency’ and the collective experiences of harm faced by hijras.

Gender Subversion and Alternative Modes of Expression   

Gender, much like dissent, is constructed through repeated performances. Denied mainstream access, hijras develop alternative modes of expression to enable negotiation for spaces and recognition. For instance, a common insult like saala is often used in public to assert masculine sexual prowess. However, when a hijra uses this insult toward a man, the connotation shifts. Taking on a new meaning, effectively shaming the addressee by suggesting their sexual virility. Hijras use gaali, particularly towards men, implying they are ‘good for nothing’ and sometimes lack sexual vitality or are impotent. A senior hijra who has been earning her livelihood through public solicitation in Bihar said:

“When a woman refuses requested alms, we incite fear in her by cursing her, wishing ill to her children and husband. But we have to be more aggressive with men so that they cannot dictate over us. We use maa-behen ki gaali, so that he feels ashamed of his masculinity. We teach them aukaat.”

The sense of respect is a governing aspect in hijras’ lives both within and outside their community structure. However, the acts of public vilification, often perceived by outsiders as aggressive or disruptive, are calibrated responses. It functions as a tool of resistance, enabling hijras to assert their presence and deter domination and insult within their immediate environments. A particularly telling instance that I encountered in this context was the perceived ‘aggressive’ response of a hijra group to being inadequately compensated for badhai (a hijra tradition associated with musical performance and blessing) at a wedding. Such instances are often simplified as “financial extortion”, but in actuality, are a profound affront to their talent and dignity.

Politics of Shaming

Hijras are positioned at the lowest end of the social structure and shamed for their existence. Against this backdrop, hijras perceive themselves as people free from keeping up the collective burden of upholding the cis-heteronormativity of public decency. Thus, use of derogatory language by members of the hijra community, often seen as crude, confrontational, or subversive, is not a sign of cultural deviance but a complex strategy rooted in a history of social exclusion, resistance, and resiliency.

Hijras use their liminal status to be not regulated by societal norms of decency. Instead, their transgression of these norms grants a paradoxical form of power, one that simultaneously invokes fear, awe, and (reluctant) respect. Anthropologist and Linguist, Kira Hall’s (1997) work Go suck your Husband’s Sugarcane! has traced the development of cultural position on hijras’ verbal cheekiness. Hall explores how hijras are capable of holding a position of control in public. This in turn, interrogates the binary normative constructs of gender and sexuality.

Hijra curses and insults, a blend of overt sexual innuendos, alternative practices and defiance, have been challenging the dominant cartographies of public decency. The hijras in India have been leveraging their lack of acceptance and marginalised position by using the politics of shaming. Their use of curses and sexual insults is not merely a behavioural quirk or cultural oddity. It is a strategic resistance articulated to dismantle normative gender performances, exercise dissent, claim space, and destabilise the codes of public decency. Understanding this phenomenon requires moving beyond moral judgments and recognising the socio-political and historical contexts of Speaking Back for Survival!

-The author (PhD) is a trans ally and human rights lawyer.