Queer Cartographies: The Evolving Hijra Community and Transgender Spaces in Contemporary Assam, India

As a sub-cultural gender identity dating back to the ancient period, the transgender community of India, locally known as hijra/kinnar/aravani, has their distinct social organization and non-kinship-based family system that runs parallel to the normative mainstream society. Using ethnographic methodology, the present study documents the ongoing collective identity formation of the newly visible hijra community in contemporary Assam by highlighting the complexities of internalizing pan-Indian hijra sub-culture within the socio-cultural matrix of Assam. While doing so, the study explores how transgender space in the state has co-evolved with this identity formation. It also explores the factors that contribute and shape their identity as they occupy, move through and develop a sense of space for themselves in the state.