Children’s Day: Let’s Speak to Our Kids About Gender & Sexuality

Can we really have a happy Children’s Day until all these issues are accepted and addressed?

November the 14th is celebrated as children’s day all through India. I wonder though how much of this celebration includes children who are Lesbian Gay Bisexual And Transgender. We are still a nation which thinks heterosexuality is the only normal thing and anything that is not cis-gendered needs to be ‘corrected’.

I remember my friend Seema*. She was barely 10 when she was caught kissing a girl in her building. Her mother couldn’t fathom the fact that she kissed another girl on her lips, that seemed to piss her off more than the fact that she actually was kissing someone at that age. Soon she was summoned to do the rounds of churches and the next few years she spent in confession boxes and being the guinea pig for exorcism experiments.

When she was a little over 14, she was ‘taught’ heterosexuality by her older male cousin, who did so at the behest of her mother. This lesson on heterosexuality is also popularly known as ‘corrective rape’.

Seema today is in her late 20s. She was married off at 18, against her will. Today, she is a divorcee, grappling to deal with what had just happened to her life. So, Happy children’s day?

Rahul* was a boy who loved wearing women’s clothes. He loved breasts, wished he had them. He knew from a very young age that he wasn’t fitting into his gender assigned to him by birth. He wanted to be a girl. He was caught wearing his mother’s bra after stuffing it with socks and handkerchiefs to be big and huge and real.

He was asked by his father if “he was a chakka”. He was bullied in school for his effeminate behaviour. He was called a faggot. Nothing wrong in being a fag, I am one, but he wasn’t a homosexual, he was a trans person.

Many years later and several suicide attempts after, he went to Bangkok to get his surgery done. He now is a she. Her family doesn’t speak to her any more. A little bit of understanding, she says, could have saved her years and years of trauma. Trans children have the worst deal. Happy children’s day for children like Rahul*?

Aseem* was around 9 years when he had spermed for the first time in his sleep. His underpants were smelly and when he went to wash himself, he thought he had “pus” oozing out of his penis. Like all boys would tell, he went and told his mother that his “chuchhi had pus”. His mother shrugged at it, and left him unanswered. She looked at him as if he had committed the worst possible sin by even mentioning about the “pus in his penis”. He was scared.

He went up to his father and told him about his pus formation. His father said that he was proud of him and that he has become a man. The question that Aseem was asking was left unaddressed. He didn’t know what was happening with his body. He didn’t know why he was thinking about naked women, why he was developing hair around his penis.

Aseem grew up with his broken understanding about sex and sexuality and his own physiological changes. He celebrated his “manhood” every time and thought that his penis was some sort of secret passage to knighthood. He was brash, rude, and also had his ways with women who he abused verbally and girlfriends he abused sexually.

While, people like Aseem’s father didn’t feel addressing the issue when it is asked and rather made it into some kind of bravado. The result of this (though not only this, but also a dozen other factors) – Aseem is here consumed with male pride. Aseem took many years to get rid of it. Aseem is good now. But he could have gone wayward completely. On behalf of all questions that we leave unanswered – happy children’s day?

My sister, Ria* went to school with excruciating pain in her stomach. She had never experienced something like this before. She is barely two years younger than me. Once she went to school, she got her periods for the first time ever. She was scared as she was not mentally prepared for this.. She came home and confided in her mom and me that she had been bleeding. Within minutes the word spread like wild fire and we had relatives coming home with gifts. Everyone was congratulating my sister as if she had won an Olympic gold medal.

Ria was left confused as here was she experiencing pain and sharing a very private moment of her life with her family, and the world was celebrating without any explanation. However, her mother did explain to her about sanitary pads and the womanly things that she will have to face. However, I fail to understand what was the purpose of celebration? And at that age, my little mind wondered why was my “coming of age” not celebrated or even mentioned, but that of my sister was considered almost like a festival. On behalf of all such children who face the brunt of hostile customs and shameful traditions – Happy Children’s Day?

I firmly believe that people should have the right to decide what they want to do with their body. One of my friends Zaheera* was around 4 years of age when her clitoris was cut with a blade. She bled and she cried. Though she was a child and way too young, she still remembers the day when she had two people looking between her legs and touching her vagina to finally rip off a part of her body against her will. She was appalled to learn that it was done so that the world could control her desires. My friend Junaid* from the same community, didn’t have it easy either. He had two old men holding him up as one ripped off the sheath covering his glans as others rejoiced.

Under POCSO, (protection of children from sexual offenses act 2012) forcing a child to expose themselves is considered a crime. While medical practices could be granted exemption, how about religious practices. Are we willing to try every religious person who in the garb of religion or customs and traditions is abusing a child? On behalf of all those children – Happy Children’s Day?

Until we grow up to being a nation that respects children as human beings with sexual desires as they grow up….until we speak to our kids about sex, gender and sexuality… until we get rid of misogynistic practices using biological processes as a bait… until we become a society where we don’t feel a shy about speaking saying words like penis and vagina just as we speak about other parts of the body… until we accept that there is no gender role that the world could force a child to obey… and that sexuality is not a “choice” that one makes… we do not have a Happy Children’s Day!

(* names changed to protect identity)

(This story was first published on 14 November 2016 and has been reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark Children’s Day.)