The Erasure of the Transgender Men’s Movement in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy of Global Press Journal
This article attempts to critically examine the contribution of transgender men to the transgender movement in Sri Lanka. It analyses the marginalisation faced by transgender men in the current context of transgender rights activism and LGBTQI+ rights activism in general.
I take recent discourse around the contribution of transgender men toward the transgender movement in particular and LGBTQI+ activism in general as the point of departure of this piece. This specific conversation around transgender men blew up in late 2023 when a research report titled “The Unseen Battle: A Situation Analysis on Transgender Male Community Living in Sri Lanka”was published by Équité Sri Lanka, an NGO that claims to be working for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community. I am not sure how far this conversation has reached given the fact that matters related to transgender men usually tend to remain peripheral in the context of LGBTQI+ rights. It resurfaced recently at an event entitled “Breaking Barriers: Empowering Transgender Individuals for Documented Identities” organised by Heart to Heart Sri Lanka, another NGO that works for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community. The event was organised as the closing ceremony of one of its advocacy projects that addressed the challenges faced by transgender individuals in getting their legal documentation updated. The dialogue urged everybody in the LGBTQI+ rights domain to reconsider the peripheral presence of transgender men in the context of transgender rights activism and the need to recast their contribution to the country’s transgender movement.
The report titled Unseen Battle claimed that “within the worldwide rights movement of the transgender community, it is seen that the visibility and the representation of transgender male community is comparatively lower to the transgender female community. Sri Lanka is not immune to this phenomenon. It is seen that the transgender male community shows reluctance in identifying themselves as ‘transgender male’. This also reflects on their participation in the common platforms created for the LGBTIQ+ community in Sri Lanka. This has immensely contributed in creating a void of the transgender male community within the LGBTIQ+ movement in Sri Lanka.”
Instead of taking this claim for granted, it is worth critically looking at it to demystify several widely held beliefs concerning transgender men and their involvement with the transgender movement. When this assertion is being considered at face value, it seems accurate to conclude that transgender men experience a lack of visibility and their representation may be less common in comparison to that of transgender women. But the report overlooks the fact that meaningful involvement is not synonymous with omnipresent visibility or representation. Taking into account the Sri Lankan context, transgender males have contributed significantly to the LGBTIQ+ rights movement and that contribution is something that should not be trivialised.
Transgender men have given their blood, sweat and tears to build the transgender rights movement in this country. This can be substantiated by both forgotten and unforgotten individuals who were involved in initiating the transgender movement. For example, the organising of transgender individuals goes back to 2002/3 and it was transgender men who first formed an informal group in Kandy, which eventually evolved into some of the current transgender rights organisations that we find today. This group of transgender men took the first step to negotiate with the country’s state medical establishment to set up transgender clinics at a time when the mere term transgender was simply alien and unheard of. One of this network’s most prominent founding members was Thenu Ranketh; along with S. Silva and a few others, they went on to establish the first ever transgender rights organisation in the country, Venasa Transgender Network. These transgender male activists also played an instrumental role in bringing the Gender Recognition Certificate into effect in 2016. It is a pity that many research reports written on the transgender community that claim to be giving a voice to an underrepresented community deliberately turn a blind eye to the history that is worth bringing to the fore.
It is evident in this kind of report that the history of the transgender rights movement and the contribution of transgender men to it has not been sufficiently documented but rather has been erased. Unfortunately, it shows that the narratives of the transgender rights movement and the contribution of transgender males to it have largely been erased and distorted at the hands of those at Colombo-based NGOs that work for LGBTIQ+ rights. They continue to hold the power to control the narratives of the transgender community.
The Unseen Battle report forgets to explain why, despite the transgender male community forming autonomous groups as early as 2002/3 – long before some other groups started organising – its visibility and representation remain relatively low unlike some other groups within the LGBTIQ+ community. Therefore how fair is it to say that the transgender male community shows reluctance to identify themselves as transgender male without referring to circumstances that make their visibility and representation marginalised in the context of LGBTIQ+ rights activism? The situation analysis did not probe into what might have been the causes of marginalisation faced by transgender men or circumstances that keep them on the periphery. In talking about the low representation and marginalisation faced by transgender men, one cannot and should not ignore the factors that caused that marginalisation in the first place.
Role models?
When the Unseen Battle situation analysis was being launched, something that was repeatedly stated was the lack of role models within the transgender male community. However, this did not seem to genuinely come from transgender men mainly because the report was not published by an organisation that has been engaging with transgender rights, particularly at the national level to bring in institutional and policy reforms to strengthen transgender rights.
The unnecessary reiteration of the lack of role models had me wondering if that was the most pressing issue that the transgender male community is afflicted by. This prompted me to reflect deeply on the frequent and seemingly casual use of the term role model, as well as the necessity to regard activists as role models, particularly in an era when activism has become significantly intertwined with the operations of non-governmental organisations. I strongly believe that activists must stay grounded and not be put on a pedestal.
Unsurprisingly, one might be confused as to why the transgender male community has a dearth of role models. Does this mean the LGBTIQ+ community in Sri Lanka has any role models to look up to? If the LGBTIQ+ community has enough role models, I do not think there will be conversations about physical altercations involving so-called LGBTQI+ rights activists. If we turn to the transgender female community, the situation is no different. If there are enough role models within the transgender female community, we will not be hearing severe sexual harassment allegations against well known, prominent transgender rights activists in the country.
Some of the transgender males who have contributed to the transgender rights movement never received recognition. Consequently, most first generation transgender male activists have left activism for good. However, a few are still active in the LGBTIQ+ rights activism scene while others are in and out of activism while maintaining a low profile.
Breaking barriers
At the Heart to Heart event, a transgender male panel discussed the history of legal documentation of the transition process. It was quite a historic event as three pioneering transgender activists representing the transgender male community were given an amazing opportunity to share their first-hand experience as testaments to the country’s transgender movement. The panel shed light on the establishment of transgender clinics, documentation change and the background of the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka issuing a circular[1] in June 2016 that grants transgender persons the right to change their gender in identity documents legally. The transgender male community played an instrumental role in making this a reality. Members of the panel included transgender rights activist and Executive Director of Venasa Transgender Network, Thenu Ranketh, transgender rights activist S. Silva and another pioneering activist[2] whose name will not be divulged here.
It is commendable that the Heart to Heart Sri Lanka team with the support of fellow activist Denuka Jayasinghe acknowledged the often neglected yet momentous contribution made by the transgender male movement in achieving policy and legal recognition for transgender people. The panel detailed some of the most shocking and devastating experiences that they had to face in the early days of setting up transgender clinics at public hospitals and also in bringing in the Gender Recognition Certificate. The prejudice endured by the transgender men when they literally went knocking on the doors of medical authorities and professionals to get medical recognition for transgender identities at a time when there was no public awareness or knowledge of gender diverse people was relentless. Their commitment to individually lobby senior psychiatrists and other medical professionals amid resistance was truly inspiring. It was a time when transgender individuals were subjected to involuntary genital examinations at the hands of ignorant, insensitive or judgemental public healthcare workers. This was a walk down memory lane and showed how far they have come as a community. Yet, there is a long journey ahead of them.
[1] The circular No. 01-34/2016, dated 16.06.2016, was issued by the Ministry of Health, at the hand of the former Director General of Health Services. The Registrar-General issued circular No. 06/2016, dated 28.07.2016, and set into operation in November 2016, instructing all registrars islandwide to change the Sex and Name in the Birth Certificate, based on the Gender Certificate.
[2] Two of the panellists have mostly distanced themselves from activism due to various issues but upon the insistence of the organisers they took part partly because this was a closed-door event attended only by invitees which mostly consisted LGBTQI+ activists, members of civil society and a few members of the diplomatic mission.
