Nee neeyayi thanne nirayenam – You should be yourself. Somewhere in the middle of a new Malayalam lullaby is this line that a mother sings for the baby. ‘Analla Pennala Kanmani’ is the first known Malayalam lullaby for an intersex child, written by Vijayarajamallika, transgender poet and activist. She has released two versions of the song, one sung by Shini Avanthika, a teacher, and the other by artist Nilambur Sunil Kumar to which dancer Sandhya E has given a Mohiniyattam performance. A Tamil version will soon be released.
It is not one but many stories that led Vijayarajamallika to write the song, she says. “There are few parents who are aware of intersex people (those who are born with a combination of male and female sex organs). Most parents prefer early surgeries to have the child grow with either the male or female identity. My song is about the acceptance that should first come from the child’s mother. Not the society, but the mother,” says the poet.
The point she is trying to make, she says, is that the mother plays a very important role in the life of a child, in making the person self-confident, motivated and enlightened.
The first line -- Aanalla pennalla kanmani neeyente thenmani -- says: "Not a boy or a girl, darling, you are my honey." And the last stanza begins with the meaningful 'Shapamalla, papamalla omane nee' -- You are not a curse or a sin, darling.
“Even now it is seen as a curse, as a shame,” says Chinju Aswathi, a student of performing Arts in Ernakulam, who had famously contested the Lok Sabha elections last year as an independent candidate.
Chinju is an intersex person, one of the few in Kerala to be open about it. “I know at least 10 intersex people in Kerala but they are forced to hide their identities because of the stigma in the society. Intersex people are seen as mentally ill, as liars. Ten years ago, there was a nurse in Thrissur who was open about it but has now become ‘invisible’ after the stigma that the person faced. Many go through depression without family support. I have been lucky. When my mother heard Mallika chechi’s lullaby, her eyes were full.”
When Chinju was born, many doctors said that the child could grow up as female if a surgery was done immediately. Only one doctor said that the parents could wait till the child reached puberty. “My mother asked me when I was in class 10 and 12 and during my Degree days. I kept saying that I want to study. Till my early 20s, I lived as a female and there were many to insult my femininity. When I tried to be masculine, I was insulted again. Now I accept myself and so does my family. I am not interested in living as male or female.”
It always comes to this disturbing binary, Vijayarajamallika notes. It was three years ago that she realised she has 47 XXY or Klinefelter syndrome, a chromosomal condition that results from two or more X chromosomes in males. Females usually have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes including a pair of sex chromosomes which are denoted by X and Y.
“The doctors said that I had underdeveloped male organs which if I didn’t remove may later create difficulties. So I had a sex-reassignment surgery and became a trans woman. But my song is for children who are born as intersex,” Vijayarajamallika says.
Many claim that there are no such children in Kerala, the poet says. But Chinju can tell painful stories of those who live closeted lives. An intersex artist in Kasaragod was made to go through a surgery to conform to the male sex but later on, the parents could not afford the hormone treatment and the child ended up with stunted growth. Another intersex person in Thrissur got the first period in class 10 and the parents made the person undergo a surgery to have the uterus removed. “The person later developed female traits and began expressing like a woman. The family then threw that person out. This gendering process should stop,” Chinju says.
Chinju and a few others are going to file a writ petition with the Supreme Court to stop unwanted “corrective” surgeries on intersex children and to make the abortion of intersex children illegal.
“Ours are not lives that should be aborted. Choosing or not choosing a gender is a person’s right. They should be able to grow up neither as male nor female until they are old enough to choose,” Chinju says.
Watch the lullaby: