Spectrum: The license to kill

Akanksha Chawla, reporting from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), covering hate crimes directed towards the transgender community, gives a prelude on the topic.

Sex: Something determined by what’s between our legs. Gender: A spectrum ranging from female to male. A spectrum, not a binary system with two options to chose from but a vast variety of orientations, including the option of belonging to neither. However, as of August 2016, it’s illegal to be who you are in 76 countries, if you are non binary. Out of which many, mostly the gulf countries have gone so far as to make gender deviations punishable by death, violating many citizen's basic right to life. Even the countries that have given legal validation to them, fail to keep them safe from directed crimes.

The United States of America saw a jump of 77% in hate crimes in 2016, mostly directed towards the transgender community. Furthermore, 97% of these crimes were violent in nature, making them the most vulnerable victims.

One such incident took the life of a 17-year-old teenager from Missouri, Ally Steinfeld who lived away from her parents, with her alleged murders. Her parents reported her as missing on 14 September, 2017 as they had not seen her for weeks. After medical tests it was found out that Ally’s genitals were stabbed and eyes were gouged out before she was charred to death by her housemates, just months after she had come out as a transgender. Her body was found near 24-year-old Briana Calderas’ house.

Ally and Briana Calderas were found to have been in a relationship before Calderas, along with two other suspects and fellow housemates, also 18 year-old teenagers, Andre Vrba and Isis Schauer, horribly stabbed her genitals with a knife. The police however, decided to not declare this murder as a hate crime, even though the crime was clearly brutal and hate induced.

According to the Indian Constitution, section 377 of the Indian Penal code, “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman, or animal” is a crime.

Do our inhibitions bind the nature too? Hatred is just lack of imagination and openness. We fail as a society if we cannot accept what is real, if we cannot think beyond our preconceived notions of right and wrong. When we avoid preconceptions, we can see things exactly how they are, the infinite space, with infinite galaxies we are just of but little ants trying to define a spectrum.

(Edited by Drishya Sobhana Narayanan)