Hijdas on Androgyne Online
July 19, 2008 by hijdaeunuchblog
http://hijdaeunuchblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/hijdas-on-androgyne-online/http://www.androgyne.0catch.com/Hijra means "impotent one" in Urdu. In Hindi, hijra may be spelled hijada, hijara, hijda, hijira, or hijrah, and is pronounced somewhere between "heejra" and "heejda". An older, more respectable term for hijra is kinnar. An abusive slang Hindi term for hijra is chakka.
Some hijras were made to be literal eunuchs — some of them against their will. The process isn't ordinarily a pretty one, usually carried out without the aid of modern anesthesia or antibiotics. Most, however, are transgender of some sort and choose to foreswear their lives as men while retaining their sex organs. A few, however, are intersex and are considered to be "born eunuchs." Hijras are usually considered to constitute a third sex or third gender in that they are neither men nor women. (Not coincidentally, both hijras and two-spirits — who are also of a third gender — refer to themselves as "not men, not women.") Hijras don't all look at themselves the same way. Some see themselves — or are construed by others — as females, feminine males, transsexuals, or androgynes. There are also female hijra, called hijrin, which are not the same as sadhin.
