ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon the critical parameters popularised by Deleuze and Guattari, viz. deterritorialisation, rhizome and becoming to show how such concepts find application in the legalisation of the third gender in India by a recent order of the Supreme Court of India. It is argued that this move does not cover other ‘unseen’, minority LGBT entities. Applying Deleuzian-Guattarian concepts to this situation brings into limelight the centre/periphery equation in the constitution of gender subjectivity with the male/female binary at the centre and the third gender at the margins. This chapter thus seeks to ‘deconstruct’ this monolithic nature of gender identity with recourse to the critical parameters of feminism and Deleuzian-Guattarian philosophy.
