The Tug of War Between Animosity and Acceptance

Nuzhat Faizah

The mischievous hide-and-seek game of the scorching sun and its vibrant flares seem to taunt Junayed’s motion as he trembles to apply kajal on his eye lines. It is his tenth interview and maybe the last chance to grab a decent job. The inevitable impediments on the way to a happy life with a prosperous job, and the very old nightmare of gender segregation, was making his life a living hell since the day he was thrown out of his house due to the fact that he was a man trapped in a woman's body.
It has been almost seven years that he has been living in a brothel. Any guy from a well-to-do family never even thinks of living in a brothel with a cloud of prostitutes and courtesans; but Junayed had to save his life from the society and religious fanatics. Being rusticated from his school just because he used to love dressing up like a girl, keeping his hair long and painting his nails, he could not even complete his school life; let alone have a successful academic background. The terrifying atmosphere of hostility used to engulf him wherever he used to go - streets, shops, hospitals, cinema halls; everywhere.
The persistent thought bubbles of harassment, verbal abuse and attack by extremists used to hover in his mind as he used to curse his whole existence.
"What is my fault exactly? Am I an unwanted personality who is suffering and always subjected to social exclusion just because my gender does not match the gender listed in certificates, documents and abide by the conventional society rules? I am a human being too and no one has the right to neglect me for any sin that I have not committed! No one is ready to hire me anywhere and I cannot do anything to earn my livelihood! Why am I compelled to learn new ways to conceal my existence?" .
Unfortunately, he could not do anything to suppress his inner voices and eradicate this feeling of emotional distress and frustration. He could no longer afford to live a neglected life.
Junayed used to love learning classical dance and he was loving the fact that the people around him were eventually accepting him because of his nature and personality. The fact that they were all prostitutes celebrating life in their own ways never really mattered to him because, at the end of the day, they belonged to a different class which was not included in the typical class system and were an excluded family member either due to gender or profession.
Then one day everything changed…
There was a Muslim neighborhood far away from the brothel and a kid was playing on the terrace. His parents were engaged with some household work and Junayed noticed that the kid was flying kites close to the edge of the terrace. It was so risky that the kid might just fall anytime; and he actually did. Before the ambience was filled with fear and cries of the baby, Junayed grabbed the scared kid at the perfect moment; he was fine. It was Junayed’s humanity which proved to be his strength and finally, he was freed from all the clutches of social stigmatization, discrimination, and emotional distress.
The parents were grateful to Junayed for saving their only son, and Junayed was accepted by the society -  irrespective of his gender identity.