Publication:

Bargaining with social construction of gender identities: transgender realities in Cumilla, Bangladesh

Background This study explored the agency of intention of transgender women within everyday forms of resistance (thought, desire, intension, and communication) against the rigorous binary biological composition and gender identities in Bangladesh's social context. Transgender women ask society to take distinct and subjective gender identities thoughtfully and uphold their right to make a transition. Transgender women go through the psychological narrative where a specific sex organ does not outline the intact gender identifications. They want to be accepted, understood and supported by establishing their inner gender identities endeavored to their agency and deconstruction of customary gender identities.

Methods The study was conducted at Kaptan Bazar, Cumilla Sadar in Cumilla, Bangladesh; twenty in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions were adopted to gather primary data. The study participants engaged with various projects and contributed health services and social counseling to other transgender and male sex workers.

Results The result considered transgender womans agency grounded in internal sharing, communication, daily activities, and viewpoints of identity position. Informal, undeclared thoughts, actions, and experiences portrayed numerous connections to their agency of intention. Encounters of participants presented a profound explanation of everyday resistance.

Conclusions The agency of intention of transgender women may create a dialogue against socio-cultural prejudice and structural injustice; simultaneously, it can intersect a better consequence in proper contexts.