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| Edited By: Yogesh Pawar |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 27, 2019, 06:00 AM IST
One of New York City's prominent nightlife fixtures, actress, singer, tv personality, drag queen and activist Miss Peppermint (runner-up on the RuPaul's Drag Race) is performing in Delhi and Mumbai. She spoke to Yogesh Pawar about her trip, the dynamic between her trans and drag personas, the trans phobia within the rainbow community and more...
This is my first trip yes. I've been looking forward to this for quite a while. I must admit I'd been jealous of some of my girlfriends like Violet Chachcki and Alaska who'd been here. I'm so glad that Keshav Suri decided to reach out to me now and I made it. I'd heard so many good things about India and in only a few hours here I can feel it is true.
Whether I'm going out as myself on a private trip or a work trip as Miss Peppermint I always try to mainstream some aspect of trans rights. I know what I'm doing is coming from privilege. Even while being aware that I try to make this aspect of what I do as extraordinary as possible. My work sets an example for other members of the community. It shows one can have a career as a performer and travel the world and one is worthy of these kinds of engagements and opportunities. In fact, this is true about any human being. To lift yourself up and become a more authentic version of who one wants to be. Of course, there are barriers one has to take on. I'm also learning. Like I want to learn from the trans community here.
(Laughs) Sometimes it can seem like they could be at odds but my drag persona is work and identity as a trans woman is my personal life. There was a time when it seemed like I couldn't have both or be both but that was more about what other people said. I've learnt to deal with it. My trans ness draws a lot from my exploring “the woman-ness and femininity” within. So I'd say they are definitely connected and on talking terms...
In the US too, until even a decade ago in the LGBTQIA+ community, the voices who took it upon themselves to speak were gay, white men. While might be an important voice to be heard, there were other voices waiting to be heard... being stifled both within the community and without. With same-sex marriage a major milestone was crossed but it took a while for people to realise the struggle is far from over. How we treat folks of colour within the trans community is a question we're still grappling with. I feel it must be the same with caste.
Yes. We had a sort of a hierarchy. Gay white men placed themselves at the top. They felt – we've been oppressed, discriminated and excluded, so its ok to normalise our own abuse of others in the community, ignore their needs and be in denial. They didn't recognise the damage they unleashed. But its changing... And yes, not because of them, but despite them.
As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and a person of colour I quickly learned culture is also a language. There were certain things I needed to learn to navigate certain spaces like others didn't. I had to learn to speak/behave in a certain way with those hiring me in the New York night clubs. So I totally understand the disadvantage of those suffering. As a young child, I got teased because I didn't fit in white folks. And black folk treated me strange because my family made it important to speak in an 'educated' way. As an adult, I've come to realise the advantage of straddling both these worlds and their intersectionalities. I still remember my first few shows for the downtown affluent New York gay community where they'd want to stereotypically box me into this sassy black girl image. While that's beautiful and I have no problems with it, it is definitely not all that we are. I'm sure in India too these factors come into play both in opportunities and who we explore our sexuality with.
The adult coach tried to protect the boys who attacked me in the school hallway saying they were never there despite witnesses. Though traumatised I instantly got up from the floor where I'd been thrown and walked to the school administrator's office to complain. The bell rang and students filled up the hallway against the transparent glass of the office. Many crying, because they'd seen what happened and knew why I was there. I feel chills even now as I recount the love pouring in from across the glass.
Everyone has a right to express their fears and say what they have to, even if irrational. If their perception is that men have always encroached on women's spaces and territories I can see where that's coming from. While there should be no pressure on them to include trans women or any other type of women, I'd like to caution them that they're then aligning with very same people who want to limit women's rights, abilities, choices about what they do with their bodies and sexuality, their economic opportunities, voting rights and holding positions of power. If your rhetoric as a feminist is beginning to pick up the same nuance and resonance of the trans phobic and the misogynist you create your own prison and patriarchy wins. Our journeys to womanhood maybe different but let us not forget the common enemy we are fighting and work together as allies that we are.
Of course! Ever since Donald Trump took over there has been a statistical rise in hate crimes in the US especially crimes against the LGBTQIA+ community and racially motivated crime. Trump's rhetoric only encourages these attacks. I'd feared so when we knew he was becoming president and now I know so. But this has led to a simultaneous rise in awareness about rights and mobilisations centred around that.
Whether Left, Right, gay, straight, whoever we are all here together on this planet. I don't think we can dismantle racism, misogyny or bigotry without working with the people who perpetuate them. It'll take time and some work to get them to see our side of things. Let's not think we can bulldoze our way through the hearts of everyone irrespective of the poison they might be filled with for us. We'll have to facilitate their journeys to understand us. It may sound Utopian but I think it is possible. For me, equality doesn't simply mean let me into your life. It means allowing the other person to enter yours too. And both sides should be willing to work their way around to make that process easy for both parties.
Japan’s Gender Identity Disorder Special Cases Act singles out transgender people who want to be legally gender re-assigned to undergo irreversible sterilisation. At outset let me underline how that's wrong and unethical and almost amounts to indirect extermination. But Japan isn't the only one. Other countries including the US might not have mandates asking for this but it was a pre-requisite for getting any kind of benefits, official recognition with a change in name and details on official documents, etc. I know medical intervention with or hormone therapy or genital surgery amounts to sterilisation in the case of trans women. If people desire that intervention in order to feel more aligned with how they feel within then they should be encouraged to undergo the procedure. My only issue is with making it into a mandate.
