Epistemic Self-reclamation of Gender: A Study of Systemic Interventions in Indian Schools

This paper explores the challenges to understanding gender issues in schools in India with the specific focus on the discourse around gender variance (GV) that has been shaped by the historical and psychological experience of colonization in the region. It further discusses the impact of colonization in creating sociocultural and academic discourses that criminalized and delegitimized gender variance in South Asia resulting in ‘cultural injustice’ wherein local knowledge systems, social practices and cultural frameworks to understand and support gender variance were discredited and systematically eroded. The resultant epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007) has percolated through the postcolonial reality to impact social, cultural and psychological responses to this phenomenon. In this context, using content analysis and critical reflexivity that draws on author’s interactions with school teachers and subsequent reflections, the paper further examines the continuing discrimination against gender variant people, especially gender variant youngsters in educational institutions that is the result of lack of awareness and sensitivity among the teachers, and also due to absence of any institutional mechanism to address the concerns of such children. The results and findings provide evidence towards lack of affirmative psychological interventions for depathologizing gender variance in schools, and also the curricular omission of non-western traditions, festivals and rituals around gender variance for achieving epistemic self-reclamation. Consequently, decolonizing educational frameworks and training the teachers to address concerns of transgender children are recommended.