Spaces as the Sites
of Socio-Cultural Conflict: The Spatio-Sexual Epistemology and Transsexuality
in A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi: A Candid
Biography of India’s First Transgender Principal
Kamal Barman,
Ph.D. Research Scholar,
Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences,
Indian Institute of Technology
Roorkee,
Uttarakhand, India.
Abstract: Drawing
on scholarship from transgender studies and critical geography, the article
explores the spatio-sexual marginalisation of the transsexual protagonist,
Manobi, in different social places in Manobi Bandyopadhyay’s biography, A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi (2017). It
makes a criticism of the hegemony of hetero-masculine production of space by
questioning the naturalness of heteronormativity.The biographical narrative
portrays a male-to-female (MtF) trans individual’s struggle for her individual
identity and social recognition as a woman, complicating the conventional
relationship between humans and spaces in Indian society. The study, using
textual analysis method, analyses the marginal experiences of a transwoman in
various social places, such as home and academic institutions, and argues that
the spatial marginalisation of a transgender individual in India is not
incidental but is deliberately produced and perpetuated by the norms of
heteropatriarchal power structures, which configure physical and social spaces
to regulate non-normative gender identities. The study uses Jane Hill’s concept
of ‘moral geography’ to explore how societal discourses around gender and
sexuality enforce spatial marginalisation of and control over trans bodies.
Keywords:
transgender, space, transsexuality, critical geography
Introduction
Space or place is a significant site for the performance
of social practices and cultural expressions, explicating the complex
relationship between humans and space. The intricate interplay between gender,
sexuality, and space forms a rich tapestry that reflects how individuals
experience, express, and negotiate their identities within their physical and
social environments. Thrift and Williams point out:
Clearly space has a lot to do with how different people
can be constituted differently. Institutions are not equally distributed in
space and in particular locations the prevalent mix of institutions will
be more or less effective in bending particular people’s consciousness in
certain directions rather than others. (16)
Space appears as an essential trope in transgender
literature to highlight the hegemonic socio-political and cultural implications
of space that often position non-heteronormative individuals as outsiders in a
heteropatriarchal family structure in India. A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi
(2017), the biography of India’s first trans woman, relates the tale of an MtF
trans individual’s struggle for identity and social recognition as a woman.
While struggling with her gender and sexual identity, Manobi recounts how
stereotypical attitudes of society towards transgender people in India hinder
the path to achievements. The biography describes discriminatory treatment
directed at her in every sphere of society, which sometimes results in violent
incidents when she expresses so-called non-heteronormative gender and sexual
inclinations. The narrative primarily takes place in a suburban area of West
Bengal but spans multiple temporal and spatial contexts. The biography begins
with Manobi recalling her childhood as a boy, “no different from the other boys
of his age” (Bandyopadhyay 1), and culminates in her mental and physical
struggle for identity and recognition as a transwoman. The perception of her
gender and sexuality begins to change among her family members when she starts
wearing her sisters’ clothes and applying kohl and lipstick from her mother’s
make-up kit. Such transgressive departures from her birth-assigned gender
performance upset the heteropatriarchal environment of the family. Her family members
try to make her understand that her behaviour is bringing shame to the family,
not only by her non-heteronormative gender performances but also by placing the
geographical moralities of the heteropatriarchal notion of home at risk through
her subversive gender performances. Even “The whole locality started shunning
us for my wayward behaviour” (10), as Manobi notes in her biography. The
spatial marginalisation of Manobi, which begins at home, continues to worsen
her physical, mental and emotional health by stigmatising her gender and sexual
expressions through “heteropatriarchal institutions of power”.
The biographical text, A Gift
of Goddess Lakshmi has received limited scholarly attention
that caters to the issues of bodily and mental trauma experienced by the
transgender protagonist (Hazarika 2021); and examining the physical
transformation after sex reassignment surgery to rethink heterosexuality and
its socio-political parameters (Barman and Kumar 2024). The critical analyses
of the biographical narrative have dealt with trauma, transsexuality and human
sexuality, problematising the hegemonic construction of heterosexuality.
However, no scholarship has examined the spatio-sexual marginalisation of the
transsexual protagonist in different social places. In this context, this research
paper explores the interconnections between humans of different sexualities and
space, examining how the heteronormative norms of space and sexuality render
transgender individuals as ‘abandoned’. To address this gap, the study locates
the biographical narrative at the intersection of transgender studies and
critical geography. This study critically examines how exclusionary norms of
space and sexuality ostracise a transgender individual in multiple ways from a
number of social institutions (home, workplace, academic institutions, etc.)
where heterosexuality prevails as a norm and discusses how such spatial and
sexual experiences of a trans person reframe the construction of space in this
biographical narrative by a transwoman herself. The author contends that the
spatial marginalisation of a transgender individual in Indian society is not
incidental but is deliberately produced and perpetuated by the norms of
heteropatriarchal power structures, which configure physical and social spaces
to exclude and regulate non-normative gender identities. The paper uses Jane
Hill’s concept of ‘moral geography’ to explore how societal discourses around
gender and sexuality enforce spatial marginalisation and control over trans
bodies. It also critiques the hegemony of hetero-masculine production of space
by questioning the naturalness of heteronormativity.
Spatio-sexual epistemology, as an emergent
interdisciplinary framework, interrogates how norms of space, gender and
sexuality co-produce forms of knowledge. Grounded in queer theory, feminist
theory, critical geography, and postcolonial theories, it contests the
universalisation of knowledge production by contextualising epistemology within
the lived, embodied, and spatial experiences of sex, gender, and desire. This
framework is based on the principle that knowledge is not only influenced and
shaped by socio-historical contexts but also by the movement, regulation, and
transformation of bodies within spaces. The spatial theories of HenriLefebvre,
David Harvey, Edward Soja and Doreen Massey in social theory allows a
rethinking of space as socially constructed and imbued with power. The
spatio-sexual epistemology builds on this spatial turn and transgender studies
to investigate the reciprocal constitution of sexuality and space through
mechanisms like surveillance, urban planning and architecture, and geographical
morality.
The Spatio-Sexual
Poetics and Transgender Subjects
The nexus of gender and sexuality, entwined with the
concept of space, encompasses a spectrum of lived experiences, social
constructions, and power dynamics that shape and are shaped by the spaces we
traverse (Shilling 1991).At its core, the relationship between gender,
sexuality, and space examines how societal norms and expectations surrounding gender
and sexual identities manifest in the design, occupation, and interpretation of
spaces. From the overtly gendered messages that spaces and places convey
through their symbolic meaning to the direct exclusion caused by violence,
“spaces and places are not only themselves gendered but, in their being so,
they both reflect and affect the ways in which gender is constructed and
understood” (Massey 179).Gregory and Urry assert that “spatial structure is now
seen not merely as an arena in which social life unfolds, but rather as a
medium through which social relations are produced and reproduced” (3).
Rabindranath Tagore’s Visva-Bharati University is, for example, associated with
a semi-humorous criticism rooted in the belief that it encourages femininity in
its male students. There is a “common Calcutta view of graduates from
Santiniketan: that they are sentimental, intellectually second-rate and if they
were male, effeminate” (Robinson cited in Choudhuri 40). This correlation
between a specific place and a distinct non-conforming concept of masculinity
prompts inquiries regarding the interrelation of gender, sexuality and space. Historically,
traditional notions of gender and heterosexuality have heavily influenced
spatial arrangements, prescribing specific roles and behaviours based on
normative ideas of masculinity and femininity. These norms have not only
determined the allocation of domestic and public spaces but have also
contributed to the marginalisation and invisibility of non-normative gender and
sexual identities. The Criminal Tribes Act (1871), for instance, legislated by
the British administrators, marked that “Hijras – or ‘eunuchs’ in colonial
parlance – were ‘habitual sodomites’, beggars, an obscene presence in public
space and the kidnappers and castrators of children” (Hinchy 2).
In urban planning and architecture, the design of spaces
has often perpetuated heteronormative assumptions, neglecting the diverse needs
of LGBTQ+ individuals (Doan 2011; Beebeejaun 2017). The arrangement and
regulation of space, A. E. Erol argues, are “achieved by imposing certain
moralities on spaces either through discourses or through architectural designs
that reflect those discourses” (89). Public spaces, transit networks, and
recreational locations may unintentionally exclude or even endanger those who
do not conform to traditional norms of gender and sexuality. As a result, an
unequal environment that fails to accommodate the full spectrum of human
diversity is created, reinforcing socio-cultural disparities. After coming out
as a trans woman through sex reassignment surgery, Manobi finds herself
spatially and sexually marginalised in her own extended family home when her
choices of gendered expression differ from the conventional ideas of a
heteropatriarchal family structure. Jane Hill argues that every space is
associated with certain moralities. The association of a specific understanding
of morality alongside a description of a space is referred to as “moral
geography” by her. The geographical morality of heterosexuality reigns supreme
at home in the Indian socio-cultural milieu. The concept of home is loaded with
an array of ideological and symbolic meanings central to constructing people’s
identities and psychological growth. Home and housing provisions are oriented
towards the heteropatriarchal family structure, which prevents Manobi from
performing nonbinary gendered behaviours in her extended family home. Gill
Valentineargues that it is not only housing that reflects heterosexual
lifestyles; the ideology of the house also takes much of its significance from
the affiliation with the heteropatriarchal family. The intolerance of her
non-heteronormative gender and sexual identification by her own family members
generates a sense of alienation from her family. The feeling of not belonging
to the family home becomes evident not only through the explicit heterosexual
behaviour and rituals of the relatives but also through the unquestioned
assumption that all the family members will hold heterosexual views and participate
in homophobic or transphobic attitudes. The oppressive force of imposing
dominant socio-cultural codes and etiquettes of society on trans people and
constant gender bashing by their family members makes the home a prison for
them as the transgender protagonist of the Hindi-language biographical TV
series Taali: Bajaungi Nahi, Bajwaungi states, “This place (home) was
beginning to feel like a jail for me” (Jadhav). The exclusive and intolerant
environment regarding gender variance at home compels most trans people to
leave home to find a trans-friendly place or organisation. For most transgender
individuals, the heteropatriarchal family home, which establishes solid bonds
and emotions, though, does not furnish everything they want.
The heteropatriarchal family structure, deeply rooted in
Indian society, functions as a mechanism that pushes the non-heteronormative
gendered expressions to the periphery and governs them as the discarded other
of the family. The question of who is entitled to occupy a specific space or
can access a specific space is intimately related to the idea of who is denied
access to it. As a result, certain individuals are rendered outsiders in our
society. Such a condition of exclusion is conceptualised as ‘abandonment’ by
the Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben. A close reading of the biography reveals
that the mainstream society excludes non-heteronormative identities in order to
preserve heteronormative norms. The destitute condition of Manobi is very
similar to Agamben’s ‘homo sacer’ who is banned from society for building a
safe, stable and normal society. Such a constitutive outside of mainstream
society, Butler says, is “composed of a set of exclusions that are nevertheless
internal to that system as its own nonthematizable necessity” (13). The
exclusion entails multiple ways of socio-cultural practices through which this
nonthematisable necessity is perpetuated. It is quite understandable after
reading the biographical narrative of Manobi that teasing, catcalling, public
harassment and aggression directed towards transgender people not only shape a
binary stratification of gender and sexuality for the initiator and the
recipient but also severely affect the psyche of the recipient. It is crucial
to examine how such processes of harassment impact marginalised people for
their gender and sexuality. The discourse of teasing and catcalling, though
commonplace, is complicit in rejecting the existence of non-heteronormative
gender and sexuality as abnormal. Though initially her early adolescent
‘wayward behaviour’ invites teasing and harassment, she later faces serious
allegations for attempting “to entrap Arindam (Manobi’s lover) in a marriage
that had no legal sanction” (Bandyopadhyay 139). This accusation not only
criminalises her desire but also invalidates non-heteronormative relationships.
Throughout the biography, Manobi constantly expresses her attraction for a male
partner, marriage and a husband to secure validation as a heterosexual woman.
Such heteronormative orientations of Manobi invite transphobic violence as a
deceiver when she is discovered a trans woman. Westbrook’s study has shown that
trans women who had turned to sex work to make ends meet were killed by
potential customers when they disclosed their trans status. Even, “woman
trapped inside a man’s body” (33) model— “transsexuality involves a
misalignment between gender identity and the sexed body” (Bettcher 383)—does
not validate Manobi’s claim as a woman in society. Rather her view of
transsexuality as a problem of the body reinforces the heteronormative
ideologies of gender and sexuality, which ultimately suppress her both as a
non-heteronormative person and a deceiver or pretender. Such discriminatory
expressions towards non-heteronormative persons engender the discourse of
compulsory heterosexuality. Like in school, she faces ridicule in college too,
where she has to “fight for identity and respect.” On her first day at college,
she recalls “I was to again become the centre of attention and ridicule despite
being a good student…Some started clapping their hands in glee when they saw
me, some just whistled and catcalled and soon taunts filled the air”
(Bandyopadhyay 40). Such experiences reinforce what Kolysh identifies as “compulsory
heterosexuality, a system of inequality that privileges heterosexual people
across society, reigns supreme in the public sphere [and the institutionalised
spaces] where, regardless of their marginalized gender or sexuality, recipients
are held captive by desire and demands of cishet men” (79) [parentheses are
mine]. This discriminatory social system makes Manobi feel insecure, leaving an
indelible trauma in her mind. The insecurity in Manobi stems from the fear of
her invisible existence in society, reinforced by the threat of violence.
When Manobi leaves home to teach in Vivekananda
Satavarshiki College in Jhargram, it becomes nearly impossible for her “to find
a permanent place to live” (Bandyopadhyay 97). When she starts living with her
aunt’s family in Kharagpur, the palpably heterosexual perception of the
neighbourhood is transgressed by her presence there. The transgression of
heterosexual norms of the neighbourhood by Manobi bears the probable eviction
of her aunt from that place as well. Even, she could not invite her transgender
friends over to her aunt’s home. Consequently, the “neighbours start taunting
her aunt for giving shelter to a hijra” (101). This incident reinforces “a
cultural norm of ‘family life’ with heterosexuality and patriarchy high on the
agenda” (Bell 325). This geographical and social separation of gender variant
individuals from heteronormative ones exists from ancient time through colonial
period to modern India. The expectations of one’s gender and sexual roles are
also transferred to the workplace, a process described by Nieva and Gutek as
“sex role spillover”. The gendering of jobs, therefore, “establishes and
effectively polices heteropatriarchy [sic] hegemony in the workplace, so that
women who do ‘masculine’ jobs, such as engineering, run the risk of being labelled
butch and therefore lesbian, whereas men in so-called ‘feminine’ roles, such as
nursing, are labelled as effeminate and hence gay” (Bowlby et al., cited in
Valentine 402). Transsexuality and homosexuality are, therefore, perceived in
the workplace as abnormal and inferior (Burrell and Hearn 1989). Thus, the
(hetero) sexualisation of the workplace privileges the heterosexual colleagues
of Manobi, who treat her as a ‘subhuman’ who has “no right to sit with them in
the same staffroom and enjoy the same facilities as they did as college
professors” (Bandyopadhyay 163). This heterosexual hegemony of space is
maintained and perpetuated through homophobia and transphobia. The use of
rejection, discrimination, and, ultimately, violence to oppress LGBTQ people causes
them to avoid publicly expressing their sexuality in environments where they
perceive they will encounter such hostility. Vivian K. Namaste observes:
One
of the remarkable things about the study of violence against sexual minorities
is the way in which such aggression can be linked to commonsense assumptions of
what constitutes “public” space, who has the right to occupy it, and how people
should interact therein….The gendered nature of both public and private space
upholds a binary opposition between men and women and thus bolsters the
ideological workings of heterosexual hegemony….The division of private and
public spaces, which relies upon and reinforces a binary gender system, has
profound implications for people who live outside normative sex/gender
relations. (141-147)
Space, as “adiscursive as well as material entity
entangled in the reproduction of the heteropatriarchalimperative” (Baydar 700),
produces and reinforces heteronormative norms that marginalise
non-heteronormative individuals as socio-spatial outcasts.
Reconfiguration of
Space and Resistance to Normative Spatio-Sexual Orders
Manobi Bandyopadhyay’s A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi
is a radical reconfiguration of gendered and spatial norms in Indian society.
The transsexual experience of space by Manobi reveals a distinct spatial
experience, one that departs from heteronormative spatial logic. Her
transsexual identity not only shapes her personal journey but also serves as a
framework for negotiating, resisting, and reclaiming heteronormative spatio-sexual
configurations. Spatial politics of home, workplaces, public institutions, and
the textual realm of her memoir are crucial to the work's narrative structure.
Manobi reconfigures spaces and resists heteronormative spatio-sexual orders in
multiple ways by creating a transgendered consciousness which constantly
destabilises the established norms of heteronormativity and spatiality. This
transgender consciousness cannot be fully understood without an in-depth
analysis of transgender experiences of space and how these marginalised
experiences compel a re-examination of the foundations of our knowledge
systems. The meaning of space and her existence can only be understood through
an engagement with spatial instability and multiplicity. Her experiences of
spaces illustrate what Doreen Massey describes as “the sphere of the
possibility of the existence of multiplicity in the sense of contemporaneous
plurality; as the sphere in which distinct trajectories coexist; as the sphere
thereof of coexisting heterogeneity” (9).
Manobi’s narrative may be read as an ongoing negotiation
with space, where resistance does not always take the form of overt
confrontation but often unfolds through subtle acts of inhabitation, movement,
and re-signification. The institutional, domestic, and social spaces she
traverses are structured by what might be called a normative spatio-sexual
order, one that presumes binary gender legibility and regulates access
accordingly. Her entry into Vivekananda Satavarshiki College exemplifies the
imposition of such normative spatial codes. The campus quickly marks her as out
of place; colleagues insist that “I had no right to sit with them in the same
staffroom and enjoy the same facilities as they did as college professors”
(163). This statement reveals how access to institutional space is mediated
through gender conformity. Shared spaces such as staffrooms become sites of
exclusion, reinforcing what queer theorists might describe as heteronormative
spatial ordering. However, Manobi’s refusal to resign or retreat is itself a
spatial intervention. By continuing to occupy these contested zones, she
disrupts the assumption that such spaces are naturally aligned with cisgender
bodies. Resistance also emerges through pedagogical practice. While the
institution attempts to expel her, the classroom becomes a space she actively
reshapes. She notes that her students were “my only relief” (134), and within
this environment she introduces critical interpretations of gender and
literature. Her discussion of Tagore’s Chokher Bali, where she
challenges the moral framing of Binodini and Ashalata, implicitly unsettles
dominant gender norms. The classroom thus functions as a counter-space, one in
which alternative understandings of gender can be articulated, even if
temporarily. At the level of everyday mobility, Manobi develops strategies that
reconfigure her relation to hostile environments. She describes avoiding
corridors and staircases “for fear that they would catch me” (74). While this
might appear as withdrawal, it can also be read as a tactical navigation of
space. Rather than abandoning the institution altogether, she recalibrates her
movements within it. Such practices resonate with Michel de Certeau’s notion of
“tactics,” wherein marginalized subjects manoeuvre within dominant structures
without fully overturning them. Importantly, Manobi also reclaims discursive
space through her editorial work. By launching India’s first transgender
magazine Abomanob (meaning subhuman), she sought to “create a space for
transgendered people in the public mind” (39). This move extends spatial
reconfiguration beyond physical environments into the realm of representation.
If institutional and social spaces exclude transgender bodies, the creation of
a textual and public platform becomes a means of asserting presence and legitimacy.
Conclusion
The study has critically examined how space—domestic,
institutional, and public—serves as a potent locus for the marginalisation and
regulation of non-heteronormative gender and sexual identities. Through a
critical analysis of A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi, the research illustrates
how spaces are not neutral repositories of human experience but ideologically
governed environments shaped by heteropatriarchal norms, where “power settles a
given population onto a given territory through a given set of administrative
structures and practices” (Stryker39).Manobi’s experiences of sexual and
spatial exclusions reveal the coercive mechanisms of hegemonic spatiality and
‘moral geography’ which criminalise and invalidate transgender subjectivity. However,
resistance to heteronormative spatial logic is also highlighted throughout the
analysis. Her lived experiences offer a counter-cartography that challenges the
heterosexual matrix of spatial organisation and foregrounds the multiplicity of
spatial organisation. By demonstrating how spatial configurations are essential
to the enactment of gendered violence, this study makes a substantial
contribution to the expanding area of transgender spatial literary studies in
South Asia. It argues that the broader struggle for gender and sexual equity
must include spatial justice, calling for a rethinking of space as a dynamic
and inclusive concept rather than a fixed, disciplinary construct.
Understanding this complex relationship ultimately enables the creation of
environments that value the diversity of human experience, fostering a more
just and inclusive society for people of all genders and sexualities.
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