Embodying
Trauma: Intersex Identity, Authorship, and Politics of Representation in
Love, No Matter What!
Swati Kumari,
Ph.D. Research Scholar,
Central University of Jharkhand,
Ranchi, Jharkhand,
India.
Abstract: “Intersex
is trouble” as stated by Morgan Holmes, “It is trouble for the families of
children so diagnosed; it is trouble for the medical specialist who make
careers out of neutralising “abnormality”; it is trouble to a system of
sex/gender that insists that bodies are oppositional in/by “nature” limited by
an absolute dimorphism” (Holmes 13). The intersex body is a natural biological
variation that only becomes "pathological" when an authority decides
that heterosexuality is the only functional norm. This paper aims to critically
examine the representation of Intersex in Indian literature by focusing on the
ways in which intersex identities are constructed in the literary discourse.
Using Love, No Matter What! (2016) as the selected text, this study aims to interrogate how
narrative authority operates in the depiction of non-normal intersex
bodies. Drawing on literary trauma
theory and representation theory, this paper argues that intersex individuals
are represented in a limited manner in contemporary discourse and such
narratives risk reproducing epistemic violence by mediating intersex voices and
simultaneously rendering them silent. The study further explores how their
trauma is represented, or negotiated when narrated by an external authorial
perspective. By analyzing the tension between representation and lived reality,
this paper raises critical questions about how such mediated storytelling
impacts the construction of intersex identity in Indian literature.
Keywords:
Exclusion, Intersex, Representation, Stigma, Trauma
Introduction
Intersex or Person with intersex traits is a term to
describe a person whose sex assigned at birth does not neatly fit into the
socially accepted binary of ‘male’ or ‘female’ because they have genitals,
hormone production levels and/or chromosomal makeups that are ambiguous or
non-binary. Oxford English Dictionary defines the term Intersex as “Having
physical characteristics of both sexes; having external or internal sexual
organs that are not clearly male or female…”
Intersex conditions arise due to Differences in Sex
Development (DSD), earlier called Disorders in Sex Development. A variety of
conditions that leads to atypical development of sex characteristics, including
one or more of the following such as external genitals, internal reproductive
organs, atypical pattern of X or Y chromosomes, or sex-related hormones. The
term “Intersex” came into being in 1917 when Richard Goldschmidt, a German
geneticist used this term (Intersexuality) in his famous text "Intersexuality
and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex" in the realm of biomedicine (Goldschmidt
433). Prior to this the term used for the people and/or animals and/or plants
with atypical gentiles are “Hermaphrodite”. The goal of the term Intersex, as
used by activists in the 1900s and early 2000s, was “influenced by queer
identity politics” which attempted to dismantle the binary sex system and
considered heteronormativity as an outdated mode of oppression. The intersex
studies, therefore as a field, is currently emerging and distinguishing itself
from the larger and more established disciplines of queer and trans studies.
Alice Dreger, a well known historian and intersex activist writes in her
renowned text titled Galileo's Middle Finger (2015) which is a field
study based on intersex lives, when
people ask how transgender is different from intersex, I assert intersex
and transgender people have historically suffered from opposite problems for
the “same reason”. Whereas intersex people have historically been subjected to
sex “normalizing” hormones and surgeries that they have not wanted, transgender
people have had a hard time getting the sex-changing hormones and surgeries
they have wanted. Both problems arise from a single cause: a heterosexist
medical establishment determined to retain control over who gets to be what sex
(Dreger 53). The trouble with Intersex
is[....] decidedly social, but the burden of cost for the trouble to the social
system is borne primarily by intersex infants and children (Holmes 13).
Apart from these shared problems, intersex and transgender
people have very different sets of problems too. To oversimplify it a bit, we
could say that intersex is primarily about how you are born in terms of your
sex organs, and transgender is primarily about how you feel in terms of your
gender identity (Dreger 9). These people with ambiguous genitals are assigned
with a gender at their birth by their parents and medical practitioners after
examining their organs or after neutralising their assumed abnormality.
However, research suggests that after hitting puberty, the intersex usually
doesn't feel comfortable with the gender forced on them at birth, as they can
have any gender identity, and also any sexual orientation of their choice. Many
a time they think of themselves as beyond the binary too. Being intersex can be
a lonely living because it is a rare and little-known condition. Many intersex
people still lack a true sense of community. It is seen that even in the
spectrum of rainbow they are lesser known ones. In the literary world too they
has a limited presence, as stated by Viola Amato in her text Intersex
Narratives: Shifts in the Representation of Intersex Lives in North American
Literature and Popular Culture (2016) “Intersex bodies are strikingly
visible because they challenge cultural notions of normative femininity and
masculinity, and as such disrupt a fundamental structuring principle of western
cultures and societies, i.e. the gender binary. Ironically, it is this heightened
visibility of intersex bodies that entails their invisibilization” (Amato 69).
People who identify as intersex are marginalised on a societal level because
they are considered as “Patholized” and in the literary world because they have
limited significant representation. Furthermore, the surgery that intersex
children frequently undergo tends to reinforce stigma surrounding anything
other than obvious gender differentiation; implying that there is something
wrong with them and that it needs to be corrected. This sense of being wrong
leads to lifelong shame and stigma which further reads as trauma. Cathay Caruth
in Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (1996) suggests
that, “As modern neurobiologists point out, the repetition of the traumatic experience
in the flashbacks can be itself re-traumatizing; if not life-threatening, it is
at least threatening to the chemical structure of the brain and can ultimately
lead to deterioration. And this would also seem to explain the high suicide
rate of survivor”(Caruth 63). This is equally applicable on intersex
individuals. They start hiding their identity from the world and become
isolated. This increases the risk of severe psychological, mental and in some
cases physical disorders and leads to suicidal behaviour.
To understand the difference of Intersex and transgender,
first we have to focus on the basic concepts like sex and gender. It is a
popular debate that gender is something we can put on or which is constructed
but sex is biologically determined. This argument implies that sex organs are
gendering objects. Here Butler suggests that “If the immutable character of sex
is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed
as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence
that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at
all” (Butler 11-12). This outlook leads to a more complex understanding of sex
and gender, which in turn accommodates the idea that both can be socially constructed
or based on cultural narratives as opposed to being inherently separate
entities bound by purely biological means. It suggests, in other words, that
sex is just as socio-culturally constructed a category of meanings as gender.
And the suggestion is, it's best to see them together as interwoven notions
instead of differentiating one.
Now in the case of intersex, it is not the debate of sex v/s
gender; instead it is a notion of acceptance of non-binary within this public
sphere. The popular belief of neither man nor woman made them inhuman in
societal perspective. Intersex infanticide remains a major problem in southern
and eastern Africa, South Asia, Brazil and China. The National Institute of
Health (NIH) recognises intersex people as a sexual and gender minority (SGM)
population affected by health disparities, highlighting “DSD populations” as a
priority area for research. So, the objective of this study is to look at how
narrative authority operates in the depiction of non-normal intersex bodies.
To understand this, the initial phase of this research
includes textual analysis through the close reading of the select text. This
phase of research will focus on understanding the language, symbol and patterns
of the texts, which further helps to understand the way authors focus on their
historical, cultural, social and political point of view. The second phase will
begin with the discourse analysis. The discourse analysis aims to look at the
overall meaning conveyed by language in context (social, cultural, political
and historical background). At this phase the research intends to show the fact
that how such different overall meaning of the text serves as a means of
promoting some form of social change or meeting some goals.
Representation of Intersex in Literature
Serena Nanda in her text Neither man nor woman: Hijras of
India writes, Traditional Hinduism makes many specific references to
alternative sexes and sexual ambiguity among humans as well as gods. Ancient
Hinduism for example, thought that there was a third sex which itself was
divided into four categories: the male eunuch, called the “water-less” because
he had desiccated testes; the “testicle voided,” so called because he had been
castrated; the hermaphrodite; and the “not woman,” or female eunuch (which
usually refers to a woman who does not menstruate) (Nanda 21-22). The mention
of other sex is always there in ancient Indian scriptures. Epics Ramayana and
Mahabharat have several depictions of eunuch characters such as Brihnala or
Shikhandi or Ila (Shikhandi and Other Queer Tales They Don’t Tell You). The
third sex which is defined as Tritiya prakriti is considered as an integral
part of Indian society since ancient times. The scriptures like Ardhnarish war
defies the notion of compulsory heterosexuality and gives a glimpse of a gender
liberal society. In The Mughal period Eunuchs were seen as respectable members
of the society. They were used to be sufi saints, ministers of the king and
guards of the harem (The Invisible: Tales of Eunuchs of India). The
Criminal Tribes Act (1871) which was passed by British India’s governor-general
targeted ‘eunuchs’ (a stigmatising colonial term for transgender), labelled
them as criminals, and ostracised their public movements. This colonial act
plays a major role in the exclusion of Indian third gender. Initially the third
gender community of Indian consists of primarily three categories of people,
the intersex, the castrated males and the male who lives as a female. In modern
India, the first judicial mention of intersex persons was in NALSA v Union of
India (2014) where the Honourable Supreme Court of India referred to the
intersex identity under the transgender umbrella. Thereafter, the Madras High
Court in a landmark judgement in Arun Kumar and Sreeja v The Inspector General
of Registration (2019), prohibited sex (re)assignment surgeries on intersex
infants and children. The term ‘intersex’ thereafter has been included under
the Transgender persons (protection of rights) Act 2019, which has been recently
passed, where a person with intersex variations is defined, but unfortunately
there was no any specific protections, prohibitions and entitlement that
reflect an intersex person’s experience. The 2016 bill was the first draft
legislation to include the phrase ‘intersex' to connote persons with intersex
variations within the transgender umbrella yet their visibility is limited. The
prime factor behind the invisibility of intersex in the society is the less
awareness about them. While the trans right movement is blooming as a
celebration of one's own choice of gender identity, intersex persons working as
a part of these movements have been invisible.
Analysis of Love, No Matter What!
In the text Love,
No Matter What! (2016), Ahuja represents an intersex child “Devi” who
fights for her right despite every odd and for the first time we see an
intersex child is represented as the key
character in contemporary Indian English literary discourse. The text traces
the life of Devi, who was born into a middle-class family, and foregrounds the
emotional, social, and identity-based struggles that emerge from this
condition. While this novel attempts to represent the trauma of intersex
identity, the narrative structure transforms institutional and structural
violence into an emotional narrative of acceptance and love. The intersex body
becomes a site of emotional empathy rather than political resistance, which
reflects the limitations of mediated representation by non-intersex authors.
At the beginning of the text, the birth of Devi constitutes
what Cathy Caruth describes as a “catastrophic event” that disrupts the
normative flow of experience (Caruth 11). The revelation that the child does
not conform to binary sex expectations produces shock, denial, and anxiety
within the family, particularly in the father’s reaction. Trauma, in Caruth’s
formulation, is not simply the event itself but the inability to fully process
it at the moment of its occurrence, resulting in delayed responses and
repetition (Caruth 4). In the novel, this delayed processing is evident in the
father’s oscillation between rejection and reluctant acknowledgment, suggesting
that the trauma is not resolved but continually re-enacted through social and
familial interactions. Importantly, the trauma in the text is not confined to a
single moment but unfolds as a continuous social process. Devi’s intersex body
becomes the locus of what can be termed embodied trauma (Van Der Kolk 195),
where the body itself is inscribed with social stigma, fear, and exclusion.
The narrative trajectory of Devi’s life, including her
partial integration into the hijra community, further complicates the
representation of trauma. On one hand, the hijra community functions as an
alternative space of belonging, offering Devi a form of social recognition
denied by her biological family. On the other hand, this movement also reflects
the structural limitations imposed on intersex individuals, who are often
forced into marginalized communities due to societal exclusion. From a literary
trauma perspective, this displacement can be understood as both a coping
mechanism and a continuation of trauma, as Devi negotiates identity within
constrained social frameworks.
While trauma theory illuminates the experiential dimension
of Devi’s journey, representation theory provides a critical lens to examine
how this experience is constructed within the text. According to Stuart Hall,
representation is not a passive reflection of reality but an active process of
meaning-making shaped by discourse and power relations (Hall 25). In this
context Love, No Matter What! does not simply depict intersex identity
but produces a particular version of it; one that is deeply embedded in
emotional and humanitarian discourse. Hall’s theory suggests that
representation is inherently selective, highlighting certain aspects of reality
while excluding others (Hall 28). In Ahuja’s text, the emphasis on emotional
reconciliation and family acceptance may be read as a narrative strategy that
renders intersex experience more accessible to a mainstream audience. However,
this strategy also transforms intersex identity into a moral lesson centered on
tolerance and compassion, rather than a site of political critique. The
intersex body, therefore, becomes a vehicle for emotional engagement rather
than a subject of structural analysis. In this light, Devi’s story is narrated
through an external perspective that, while empathetic, remains detached from
the embodied reality of intersex experience. This can be understood as a form
of narrative ventriloquism, where the author speaks on behalf of the intersex
subject. While the text attempts to give voice to Devi, the narrative
ultimately reflects the author’s interpretation of intersex identity rather
than a self-articulated experience. This raises the question: to what extent
can intersex trauma be authentically represented by those who have not lived
it? As Stuart Hall argues, representation is constructive: it produces the
categories through which identities become intelligible (25).
The intersection of trauma, representation, and authorship
in Love, No Matter What! thus reveals a complex dynamic. On one level,
the novel performs an important cultural function by bringing intersex identity
into public discourse; on the contrary it reproduces certain limitations
inherent in mediated representation, where the intersex subject is constructed
through external perspectives. Ultimately, the text can be read as both a site
of visibility and a site of mediation. It makes intersex identity visible
within Indian fiction, but this visibility is shaped by the author’s
positionality and the demands of narrative form. The intersex body emerges as a
site of trauma, empathy, and moral reflection, but it also remains constrained
by representational frameworks that privilege emotional resolution over
structural critique.
Conclusion
Komal Ahuja’s Love, No Matter What! occupies a
complex position within intersex representation in Indian fiction. Through the
lens of trauma theory, particularly of Cathy Caruth, the text presents intersex
identity as a form of embodied and continuous trauma, shaped by social stigma,
familial rejection, and identity fragmentation rather than a single event. At
the same time, using Stuart Hall’s representation theory, the text can be seen
as constructing intersex identity through a humanitarian narrative of suffering
and acceptance, which generates empathy but risks simplifying structural
issues. As Hall suggests, Within the arena of Cultural Studies, representation
is understood not as a passive reflection of social reality but as an active
site of meaning production (10). This duality underscores the need to
critically examine not only intersex representation but also the politics of
authorship and voice in literary discourse.
Work Cited
Ahuja, Komal. Love, No Matter What!. Srishti Publishers and Distributors, 2016.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.
Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Dreger, Alice. Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the
Search for Justice in Science. Penguin Books, 2015.
Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Simon and Schuster, 1963.
Goldschmidt, Richard. "Intersexuality and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex." Endocrinology, vol. 1, no. 4, 1 Oct. 1917, pp. 433-456, doi:10.1210/endo-1-4-433.
Hall, Stuart, editor. Representation:
Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Sage Publications, 1997.
Holmes, Morgan. Intersex: A Perilous Difference. Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania: Susquehanna. University Press, 2018.
"Intersex, adj. and n." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, July 2023, www.oed.com/dictionary/intersex_adj. Accessed 31 Mar. 2026.
Jaffrey, Zia. The Invisibles: Tales of Eunuchs of India. Pantheon books, 1996.
Moreno-Begines, María de Las Nieves et al. “Intersexuality/Differences of Sex Development through the Discourse of Intersex People, Their Relatives, and Health Experts: A Descriptive Qualitative Study.” Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 10,4 671. 2 Apr. 2022, doi:10.3390/healthcare10040671.
Nanda, Serena. Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Wadsworth Publishing, 1999.
Pattanaik, Devdutt. Shikhandi: And Other
Tales They Don't Tell You. Zubaan/Penguin Books India, 2014.
Vakoch, Douglas A. Transgender India: Understanding Third Gender
Identities and Experiences. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
van der Kolk, Bessel. "The Unbearable
Heaviness of Remembering." The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and
Body in the Healing of Trauma, Penguin Books, 2014, pp. 195–213.
'Beyond the Binary: Advancing Legal Recognition for Intersex Persons in India' (Jaynat Kothari, Krithika Balu and Rohit Sarma, (CLPR and Solidarity Foundation,
Bangalore, 2020)., 09 Jul 2020) <https://clpr.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CLPR_PolicyBrief_2.pdf> accessed on 11 Aug 2024.
India. The Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. Act
XXVII of 1871. India Code, 12 Oct. 1871,
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/repealedfileopen?rfilename=A1871-27.pdf.
“‘The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.’ EGazette Home, 5 Dec. 2019,Egazette.Nic.in/(S(Fytudwaaqmccni4nhaa4zzou))/Default.Aspx?AcceptsCookie=yes.”
National Legal Services Authority v. Union
of India. AIR 2014 SC 1863, (2014) 5 SCC 438. Supreme Court of India.
Arunkumar and Ors. v. The Inspector
General of Registration and Ors.
W.P.(MD) No. 4125 of 2019, Madras High Court (Madurai Bench), 22 Apr. 2019.