LONGING FOR BELONGING: TRANSGENDER IDENTITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN LIVING SMILE VIDYA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that combines various disciplines to analyse gender as a social construct and not as a biological factor. It explores gender identity, gender expression and gender representation. The objective of this field is to create an equitable society by challenging the stereotypical gender norms. Gender identity refers to the way how one internally identifies his or her gender that may differ from his or her assigned sex at birth. When one changes his or her biological sex due to his or her gender identity, he or she is known as transgender person. Living Smile Vidya, also known as Smiley, is an Indian actress, assistant director, writer, and an activist for transgender and Dalit rights. The present study aims at an analysis of Living Smile Vidya’s autobiography I am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey so as to bring out the transgender person’s yearning for acceptance in both family and society. In this work, Vidya recounts her struggles and experiences of being a trans-woman. She was biologically male at birth but later she was transformed into a woman due to her gender identity. The society is unaware of the fact that gender identity is personal trait which challenges the stereotypical gender norms. One of the reasons for the transformation is the change that occurs in the chromosome formation. It makes the mind of a person to act against the body. The conflict between the mind and body makes the transgender person to get the duality and it causes lifelong misery. The gender identity is influenced by a combination of genetic, hormonal, environmental, and social factors. Hence, it is hard for the common people to understand and accept transgender persons. Often people consider mistakenly the trans-persons wantonly misbehaving and they fail to understand the nature of them. As a result, the transgender persons struggle to establish their own identity and long for social acceptance.