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Ever since he came out as a trans man last week, Suchetan Bhattacharya, the only child of former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, has been flooded with interview requests. He has entertained most, even politely educating uninitiated television anchors about LGBTQIA+ identities, never losing his composure.
However, there is one thing that he finds off-putting. The careless process of misgendering him. “It is very painful to carry a biological gender identity which is totally opposite of my actual gender identity that I feel mentally and emotionally. It hurts me a lot to carry a female name, write female in the gender section, see the ‘Ms’ title in front of my name and so on but this pain gets deeper and deeper as I am getting older,” says the freelance audio-visual artist.
Casual misgendering and dead-naming (calling a transperson by their birth name when they have changed their name as part of their gender transition) can make people with trans identities feel repressed. “It can be very painful for us. Another thing that irritates me a lot is that some people who pretend they know about LGBTQIA+ don’t understand the basic difference between transgender men and lesbians,” Suchetan points out.
“Mass awareness is the key to making the society realise that there is nothing queer or no one should be termed as queer. Society must understand that a person from the LGBTQIA+ community is as ‘normal and natural’ as any heterosexual person,” he adds.
The 41-year-old’s decision to come out publicly at an LGBTQIA+ event did raise a social media storm in Bengal. Many supported Suchetan, while others questioned the need to do this. Political parties reacted to the news with a rare show of sensitivity. While Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Debangshu Bhattacharya said Suchetan has “every right to live his life the way he wants”, state secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) West Bengal unit Srijan Bhattacharya said demanding equal rights for marginalised genders is a part of Leftist ideology.
Nevertheless, Suchetan is acutely aware of the fact that his story got more attention because he is Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s child.
“There are many trans men along with other members of our community who are fighting their battle on a daily basis; because I am the child of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee I got huge attention as well as the support of the media. I requested everyone that I am now 41+, a very grown-up person so there is no need to mention my father’s identity,” he explains.
It’s clear that Suchetan does not want his father’s identity to hijack the “cause”. “I want the focus to be on the issue at hand. I want the world to know how difficult it is for people to come out even now. I was attending a workshop on the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community arranged by the People’s Relief Committee and listened to many people’s traumatic experiences. These are the stories that also need to be told,” says Suchetan.
Does he feel any political burden? “I have no political burden, in fac, it was at an LGBTQIA+ workshop arranged by the people’s relief committee, a strong Leftist organisation, that I first revealed my gender identity publicly. But let me be clear, I am not a member of the CPI(M) or any other political party,” he is quick to add.
If it was hard growing up with gender dysphoria (marked incongruence between experienced or expressed gender and the one assigned at birth) in the Kolkata of the 1990s, Suchetan is determined not to make a big deal out of it. “To be honest, I didn’t feel the kind of loneliness which most people of queer community feel. Maybe because my parents never dictated to me what to do or how to behave like a girl. I consider myself very fortunate in this respect.”
“I was aware of my gender identity from my very childhood that I am not a girl and I dress and behave like a boy which my parents never disapproved of. Even in school though I had to wear a girl’s uniform, my boyish behaviour was not criticised by my teachers, and I have a small circle of very good friends who took it very naturally. This continued in my college days also,” he recounts.
Being the child of a powerful political figure, however, provided him no insulation from hurtful “heckling”. “Things have been challenging and I have been harassed from time to time. Many people taunted me, labelled me eccentric, mad or abnormal, and made flying remarks about me being a boy or girl, about my choice of dress, hairstyle. There have been discussions about the presence or absence of biological male organs,” says Suchetan.
Currently in the process of undergoing gender affirmation surgery, he talks about his parents’ support in the journey: “My parents have extended me their mental support, but they are both aged and physically unwell so I don’t want to involve them in my transformation process. I have my partner beside me and I am also surrounded by some very loving and sincere friends and acquaintances.”
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