The Dilemma of Gender Dysphoria
Shreeya Mashelkar
His hands struggled to grasp at the window pane above. Feet slipping against the concrete grey wall. The latch of the broken lock over his wrist clanked every time he struggled to jump. He could see faint sunrays from the window hitting the bleak walls, the night was closing in on him, and it was almost dawn. He tried harder, like a trapped bird flapping at its wings relentlessly inside a cage.
*CLANG*shut the Iron Gate down the passageway. His heart halted for a second on hearing that sound. As the footsteps grew heavier on the cold hard floor, his heart started beating faster. His desperation grew, thinking this could be his last chance- Last chance to get away from this torturous jail and escape.
He knew the night watch’s guard would leave after checking the asylum floors one last time before his shift ended. He had to leave before the guard reached his lockup and realized his absence. His master plan of slipping out after the routine check-up had worked well up until this last leap he had to take. He had been planning this weeks now, after knowing what lay in his future here. Chills ran down his spine even at the mere thought of his psychiatrist’s words-“It’s just a chemical imbalance. Your confusion will go away after the therapy. Radiation kills the bad and keeps the good.”
It all came back to him in flashes, he could trace it back to the day he was brought in. Dragged by the wrist by his mother, driven angry and worried for months by her inappropriately dressing rebellious son. She told the doctor how troublesome it had been for her, trying to handle him. Until that day she had tried to correct him, but that day she had had enough. He had lashed out at his colleagues at college for teasing him for his attire and had gotten into a physical fight with them. “But they were mocking my pink trousers, imitating me and laughing at me in front of everyone”, he tried justifying his action; all in vain. His mother was embarrassed by him, and the constant sneering comments from their relatives and guests. And the solution she sought, lay in this grim environment of a medieval-looking mental asylum. Filled with patients considered abnormal by society.
It has been 15 years now from the time of his admission, his family never came to meet him. He felt lonely, depressed, and misunderstood. The thought of living outside these high walls of society scared him all the more. He just wanted to run away, dreaming of a place where he could live peacefully, dress and behave without being judged. Away from all the scrutinizing eyesight’s of the people. Growing out of the orthodox binary system and breaking free from the shackles of the narrow-minded society, afraid of accepting a change.
He looked over his shoulder at the dimly lit passageway. The silhouette of the guard was right across, leading his way to the dead end where he stood. And before he could react, the director yelled, “Cut!” As the scene ended, the actor felt drained. Heaving a sigh, he quickly made his way to his green room. As he shut the door behind him, he looked at himself in the mirror and burst into tears. His assistant walked in to offer him water a little startled at the actor’s emotional moment. She had been with him long enough now to know that method actors like himself are very deeply affected by their character, but little did she know the truth this time.
The actors resonated with the character’s feelings, reminding him of his past, lost in flashbacks. He never really identified himself as a man even though he was born a male. Nor did he follow the gender norms set by society asking him to be “manly”. The method-acting came to him as a need to fit in, which arose when he got rejected for the first role he ever auditioned for in his life. Not making the cut as he was too feminine to play the male protagonist’s role. He lived his acting quite literally, learning mannerisms considered right for his gender. He got by as a man as expected by the heteronormative society after observing cis men around him. He had hidden his gender identity quite well from the world. But the swirling storm of conflict had been restrained for far too long now. He could finally behave the way he felt like and be applauded for it. Although for a short time, till the film shoot lasted.
“It is time we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals.”-Emma Watson
Sex and gender are such befuddling mysteries even for those of us who are in the mainstream that one would think we’d be wary of being judgemental. Yet much of our society clings to a view that gender is completely binary. No human is ever just addressed as a male or female for the sake of differentiating sex in society. It’s the gender that’s so strongly linked with sex that all the baggage of the gender roles that it carries with it is laid onto people very naturally. As if being masculine and feminine publically is biological. Sex is biological but gender and gender roles are a social construct. Thus people should be given a chance to choose the gender identity they are comfortable with and wish they should have been born with despite their biological sex. Because autonomy over one’s body is every human being’s right.
