Call me Heena

“I feel like a mermaid. My body tells me that I am a man but my soul tells me that I am a woman. I am like a flower, a flower that is made of paper. I shall always be loved from a distance, never to be touched and no smell to fall in love with.” Heena,51 Hijra, a term of South Asia which have no exact match in the modern western taxonomy of gender, designated as male at birth with feminine gender identity and eventually adopts feminine gender roles. They are often grossly labeled as hermaphrodites, eunuchs, transgender or transsexual women in literature, presently a more justified social term for them is the Third Gender. Instead of coming from various social and family backgrounds, Hijras feel a strong sense of belongings to their groups. These groups give them the shelter of a family and the warmth of human relationship. I am working on Transgender community in Bangladesh known as Hijra, since 2012 . Bangladesh has recently accepted the Hijras as the Third Gender. I am willing to seize this opportunity to highlight the fundamental aspects of social discrimination, which lead the Hijras to migrate into a foreign land, India. My intention to show how different religion and culture deal with issues like this differently and adds another dimension towards the social acceptance of Hijras. I hope my work will help the Hijras to find a breathing space in a claustrophobic society like ours.

Shahria Sharmin is a freelance photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After doing her Masters in Public Administration from the University of Dhaka, Shahria pursued her further study at Pathshala South Asian Media Academy in Bangladesh where she became fascinated with the social history of photography and the evolution of identity, sexuality and gender in relationship to material culture. ‘Call me Heena’ Shahria’s ongoing project, takes her interest in photography’s connection with identity to explore and express the diversity of human experience.