The Hijraness - Is it a psychological feeling?

Please Note: The views expressed here are my personal views and are not intended to hurt anyone.

About Bahuchara Matha:

                     In 12th Century, somewhere in Gujarat - Rajasthan border, there used to be a girl called 'Bahuchara'. Once, she was traveling in a forest along with her companions. This caravan was attacked by a group of robbers in the forest. They were looting men and molesting women. With no intention to surrender, she killed herself.

                     It is believed that after her death, Bahuchara gave a curse of impotency to these robbers. The curse would be void only when they worshiped Bahuchara Mata by dressing and acting like a woman.  These robbers did the same and mata was pleased by this.

                     Later on, a king in Gujarat prayed Bahuchara Mata for a son. After many years of waiting, a son was born, but he was impotent. One night, Bahuchara mata appeared in the prince's dream and told him that he was born like this as he was the member of robber group in his previous birth. She asked him to wear woman's clothes, behave like a woman. She even said that, if her orders were not obeyed, she would curse him to be born like the same for the next seven incarnations. The prince obeyed her orders.

                      It is believed that, she would, even now, come in the dreams of 'few identified men' and would order them to become a woman.

These identified men are the people of the Hijra Community

What happens in the life of a Hijra?

Stage -1 : 
                    Hizras are born as normal 'baby boys'.

Stage -2 : 
                    When these kids are 5-7 years old, they get attracted towards certain odd things like:

• Intention to play only with girls,
• Willingness to wear women's clothes
• Unnecessary shyness, etc.
• Interest towards lipstick and other women things

Stage - 3:
                     These kids get closer to the people with similar feelings in the village / town. The senior community members of the town would attract such kids and would start influencing them.
When this kid, the boy with 'odd' feelings, who is 12-15 years old now, comes under the influence of such people, he starts to believe that he was the 'robber' in his previous birth and was cursed to be born like this.

Stage - 4:
                    Due to these psychic disorders and the external influences, he would even get a similar dream where the goddess would ask him to come out of the body of a man and become a woman.
Now, he completely believes that he has no normal feelings at all and he is not a normal human being (male).

Now, what happens later on?

• This boy would totally become a girl
• He would run away from his house, change his appearance, name
• He would be getting associated with his community people

Now, the real struggle of life starts for him (her).

• No one gives him any work to do and he has no legal 'gender' status 
• He cannot go back to his original life
• At this point of time, he believes that all these sufferings are only due to the curse and matha has asked him to lead his life like this inorder to get proper birth atleast in his next janma. This feeling leads into the development of another psychic disorder where he starts hating the society
• He leads a meaningless life which has no moral values, which involves human trafficking etc. He lives in an unhealthy environment as no one would give him proper shelter and food.As a result of this, he would die young.

So, what should be done to correct such 'kids'?

                  Generally, our grand parents always used to ensure that boys play only with boys and not with girls. We think that they were wrong in doing like that. But, we must realize that, this 'gap imposition' has nothing to do with gender discrimination. It is actually to ensure that there would be no influence of a girl on a boy especially during the tender age. And, we must accept the fact that our elder ones have seen much more 'such' cases when compared to us. So, such monitoring is very important.

                  My intention is not to say that we must impose a compulsory gap. It must be ensured that proper monitoring of the kids is done. It is always easy to correct the kid by providing him necessary medical counseling and by changing the environment.