Asian Ethnology 83-1 | article Contested Bodies Negotiating Trans*femininity and Devotion in Rural South India

Sarah Merkle-Schneider

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This article examines regional notions and practices of trans*femininity and how cross-regional concepts of trans*femininity play within these. The jōgappas, a male-to-female trans*community in rural North Karnataka, worship the deity Ellamma in her local manifestation as initiated devotees. As part of their service to Ellamma, they adopt signs of femininity such as female attire, jewelry, or long hair but also maintain asceticism and an intact and thus physically male body, which guarantees the required ritual purity. This enables them to embody Ellamma by providing her an adequate body, which the goddess can inhabit and influence with her femininity and divinity. Jōgappas have recently become increasingly influenced by powerful discourses on gender and femininity, particularly those defined by the cross-regionally organized hijras. For hijras, norms of trans*femininity are based on surgical emasculation and the physical making of a female body. Material from ethnographic field research documented since 2013 reveals that the core of trans*femininities in the specific context of the jōgappas lies in the close relationship and interaction between the worldly and the divine, and for now continues to be crucial for the distinct identity of the jōgappas. The material also shows examples of negotiations and changes within the jōgappa community, which are driven by cross-regional hierarchies and individual tensions, and lead to a growing distance between the jōgappas and Ellamma, potentially resulting in a loss of specificity of the jōgappa identity.