One of the reasons religion bothers me so much is the way the same people who react so vehemently about ‘drawing their prophet’ are so silent when their fellow-believers massacre innocent people of another sect mercilessly in broad daylight.
When the priority of being a human-being with active conscience is replaced by the one of being a member of a particular faith... there is something wrong indeed. There has to be something wrong; I always wondered why more people cannot see it. Is there anything really over humanity? Isn’t that the reason religions were created in the first place- simply put- to serve as a guidebook to being a more humane human?
I just wish you’d remove that veil and see where you are taking this world to... it’s time you woke your conscience that’s been sleeping for centuries, it’s time you shook out of that trance, it’s time you looked around... and realize that the brain that you have, it’s for reasoning things out for yourselves...
And who knows, it may even not be too late....
The Third Sex
The society I grew up in, it has a rather aversive attitude towards the eunuchs (and transgenders).
To an extent that they are considered lesser of humans who does not get the social status of a regular man or woman; to an extent when the eunuchs live separately from their families- in ‘eunuch colonies’, don’t get proper education as they are very often abandoned by their families and what they mostly do for a living is prostitution.
The word ‘hijra’ (the Hindi/ Bengali/ Urdu word for eunuch) is derogatory in South Asian languages- something you do not use in ‘sophisticated’ company, more a slang than anything else. Sadly it is not much different in the English-speaking world either. I don’t know about the social statuses of that this less than fortunate group in the context of the more civilized Western society, but if ‘the word’ is used as a derogatory term- there is little chance of anything being different to a vast degree- after all.
While our biologist friends can give us a perfectly reasonable scientific reason of what causes a person to be a man, woman or a member of ‘the third sex’- I am more concerned with the way society treats this group. I find it funny in having to spell it out- but there is more to an individual than what ‘gender’ you can categorize him (or her or whatever) as- it’s time we became aware of it.
Just as sad it is that anyone will find it funny when a group of Indians with a disgusting sense of humour passing through a photograph of Serena and Venus Williams wearing a sari- saying the following-
‘You will die laughing at how ‘hijra’ Venus and Serena looks’.
Here is the picture:
No, I’m not laughing.
I see two American ladies wearing YOUR traditional clothing, I see two ladies belonging to a different racial group than you wearing YOUR traditional clothing- I see these two ladies are trying to embrace your culture. I see nothing funny in that, I think it is nice.
It’s time you stopped laughing too.
To an extent that they are considered lesser of humans who does not get the social status of a regular man or woman; to an extent when the eunuchs live separately from their families- in ‘eunuch colonies’, don’t get proper education as they are very often abandoned by their families and what they mostly do for a living is prostitution.
The word ‘hijra’ (the Hindi/ Bengali/ Urdu word for eunuch) is derogatory in South Asian languages- something you do not use in ‘sophisticated’ company, more a slang than anything else. Sadly it is not much different in the English-speaking world either. I don’t know about the social statuses of that this less than fortunate group in the context of the more civilized Western society, but if ‘the word’ is used as a derogatory term- there is little chance of anything being different to a vast degree- after all.
While our biologist friends can give us a perfectly reasonable scientific reason of what causes a person to be a man, woman or a member of ‘the third sex’- I am more concerned with the way society treats this group. I find it funny in having to spell it out- but there is more to an individual than what ‘gender’ you can categorize him (or her or whatever) as- it’s time we became aware of it.
Just as sad it is that anyone will find it funny when a group of Indians with a disgusting sense of humour passing through a photograph of Serena and Venus Williams wearing a sari- saying the following-
‘You will die laughing at how ‘hijra’ Venus and Serena looks’.
Here is the picture:
No, I’m not laughing.
I see two American ladies wearing YOUR traditional clothing, I see two ladies belonging to a different racial group than you wearing YOUR traditional clothing- I see these two ladies are trying to embrace your culture. I see nothing funny in that, I think it is nice.
It’s time you stopped laughing too.