The blessed and the damned: transgender women talk about India's ambiguous attit

[stephaniec]

The blessed and the damned: transgender women talk about India's ambiguous attitudes towards them

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14210071.The_blessed_and_the_damned__transgender_women_talk_about_India_s_ambiguous_attitudes_towards_them/?ref=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScottishNewsHeraldScotland+%28Scottish+News+%7C+Herald+Scotland%29

Heraldscotland/Vicky Allan, Senior features writer / Saturday 16 January 2016 / News

"PREMA beats out a lulling rhythm on her double-ended, mridangam drum. As she does so, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the small room that is her entire home – stove in the corner, bedroll to one side – she is demonstrating one way in which trans women have earned money for centuries here in India, where they are considered to have special powers. A 3,000-year-old South Asian tradition of a third gender, of eunuchs, means that while these trans women, "