ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the stories of the sexual minorities the author met in the cities of Kancheepuram, and subsequently in Chennai and Tambaram, a suburb of Chennai. For many aravanis, on other hand, the sexual reassignment procedure known as nirvan is an important marker that allows them entry into the cultural and social milieu of the aravanis in ways that will be discussed in this chapter. The chapter presents the narratives of sexual minorities taking particular cognizance of the various axes of power and domination—socio-economic status, class, education and linguistic abilities—that determine their status and experiences within society. Within the intersecting axes of sexuality, class and gender the MSMs and aravanis whose narratives the author presents in this chapter were all from socio-economically underprivileged backgrounds, with little or no formal schooling; most only spoke Tamil. Unlike the case of Female Sex-Workers (FSWs), most of the sexual minorities discussed in this chapter did not engage in sex-work exclusively for pecuniary reasons.
