International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 11, Issue 6, June-2020 492 ISSN 2229-5518 IJSER © 2020 http://www.ijser.org “Bottled in a Man’s Body”: Thinking over the Norms of Sexual and Gender Identities through the Eyes of A. Revathi and Manobi Bandopadhyay Rochna Roy Abstract- Intolerance towards the queer is ingrained in institutions such as family, media, law and workplace. These institutions shape the thoughts and understanding of the society. Social intolerance towards the queer affects them in many ways. They are forced to conform to the normative ideal, failing which they are marginalised. Marginality usually leads to invisibility. The politics of gender and sexuality in contemporary India is largely based on the notion of “normative” and “alternative” identities; the “alternative” is often defined in negative terminologies. Most of us grow up believing the stereotypical notions often associated with third gender individuals. Considered to be habitual examples of societal menace and nuisance, the mainstream dominant gaze looks at them with disgust and contempt. This paper attempts to dismantle the borders of binary gender identity by analysing the two autobiographies – ‘Truth About Me, The: A Hijra Life Story’ (2011) by A. Revathi and ‘A Gift of goddess Lakshmi: A Candid Biography of India’s First Transgender Principal’ (2017) by Manobi Bandyopadhyay and aims to show that hijras are normal and ordinary people. Through the novels, the authors bring to light the discrimination they have gone through in their day to day life because of their gender identity. The inability to identify with fixed gender norms often makes a person undergo a sense of identity crisis, and one often begins to feel alienated from one’s own body. This paper attempts to reconstruct the image of hijras as ordinary human beings and strive to dispel the myth that hijras are subhuman. Index Terms - Sexual Minorities, Normative, Stereotypes, Deviant, Queer ——————————  —————————— The Individuality of Sexual minorities are very visible in India these days. Intolerance towards the queer is embedded in almost all the institutions such as family, media, law and workplace. It is these institutions that frame the thoughts and monitors the understanding of the society. Social intolerance towards the queer affects them in several ways. They are forced to conform to the normative ideal, failing which they are marginalised. Marginality usually leads to invisibility. Unfortunately, so far as the queer community is concerned, marginality in addition to their individuality also leads to their hyper-visibility as “deviants”. They are portrayed as “hyper-visible subjects” worthy of contempt; ‘the ‘visibility’ of the normal queer citizen gets transfigured into the hyper-visibility of the queer ‘deviant’” (Narrain, Despised Sexuality. p- 7). The very term “queer” here encompasses the complex diversity of identities of sexual minorities. For a person identifying oneself as queer signifies a deeply felt sense of personal identity. At the same time, it also becomes a conscious defiant political stand. It rejects the idea of a patriarchal heterosexual family. It also challenges the notion of compulsory heterosexuality. Queer reflects a different understanding of sexuality which moves beyond the strict boundaries of heterosexuality. To speak of queer politics is, in some sense, different from just speaking of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, kothi, and hijra communities. Queer politics does not speak only of the issue of those communities as a ‘minority issue’, but IJSER