Hyderabad Book Trust and Anveshi invites you to an event of book introduction of 'The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story' by Revathi. Revathi introduces the book and readings from both the English and Telugu books. Participating in the discussion are Revathi, Karthik (Telangana Transgender Hijra Samithi) and others from the transgender community.

The Truth About Me: Minorities, it has been said, don’t count until they are counted. Globally, it is estimated that 0.3% of adults may identify as transgender. This is equal to the populations of countries like Kazakhstan, Equador and Cambodia. Viewing the numbers in this way puts a new perspective on things.

Revathi's book is provocative and gripping, and, at the same time, awe-inspiring. As she describes her terror-filled life, she does not plead for pity. All she asks is for others to recognize and treat hijras as fellow humans, with the same hopes and desires as everybody else. The frankness and fearlessness with which she discusses even the most ‘private’ aspects of her life as a hijra—the details of her sex-change operation, her sexual encounters with her customers, the brutal sexual assault by the police and so on—is striking and admirable. Her critique of social constructions of gender and dominant notions of masculinity—bereft of theoretical jargon, and, precisely because of this, lucid and compelling—is a powerful plea for us to radically re-consider what it means to be male and female at the same time as it urges us to seek the third way—of transcending the rigid binary division between male and female and work towards a notion of humanness beyond and above gender as conventionally understood.

Entry - free