brownbitchbisexual:

“Most trans people in India come from poor families (one of the reasons for this may be that trans people who are from economically well-off families might be concerned about inheritance issues and losing out on financial support if they were to assert their gender openly), or if they are not from poor families, they become economically, socially, and politically dispossessed as a result of their trans identity. Dalit trans activist and artist Living Smile Vidya talks about transphobia as a type of brahmanism, with the hijra becoming the untouchable subject. Because of transphobia, even hijras and trans men who come from well-off, Savarna families are unable to pursue their education or procure jobs. It is only in Dalit colonies that trans people are able to rent out houses. This might be the result not of an acceptance of our trans identity but rather of the economic necessity of the poorer house owner to rent out his or her house. The fact that there is more visibility of hijras in Dalit colonies has to a certain extent normalized their presence, though they are still ridiculed on an everyday basis.”

—

Gee Imaan Semmalar, “Unpacking Solidarities of the Oppressed: Notes on Trans Struggles in India”

This passage reminded me a lot of conditions I’ve encountered here, living in the “bad part” (read: Black) part of town because its the only area me and the other trans kids living with can afford, how the situations of other trans people I’ve visited mirror this, to the point where it seem like every out trans person I know, regardless of their social background, works the same type of menial retail job and lives in the same type of housing. Most of us were lower class, from birth, but many others are “proletarianized” in the process of coming out and facing the repercussions thereof. And this means that, far from the stereotype of the upstart, privileged tr*nny that seems strangely common in people’s minds, the real situation is that the vast majority of us, by necessity, live in constant contact with other oppressed groups and lower class people in general. Our solidarities are not grounded in idealism but in the real material conditions of our existence on the margins of society.

(via mall-communism)