GLR November-December 2025

ESSAY

Caste and Gender Identity in India P OORVI G UPTA

W HEN RADHIKA, a 23-year-old Dalit trans woman, was growing up in a slum in the western part of Delhi, India’s cap ital, she never thought she’d move be yond her neighborhood to become part of the city’s queer elite. Her home, barely 25 Gaj of space (equivalent to 225 square feet), which housed twelve members of her extended family, is situated in a colony near a sewage drain in an area dominated by caste-mar ginalized people. “Very early on, I realized that I am in a losing battle owing to my trans queer identity, marginalized caste, and economic class group,” said Radhika, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym to protect her identity. “So growing up, for the

several jobs from an early age to pay for her education. How ever, Radhika hadn’t always been excellent at her studies. “I was in fifth grade when I stopped going out to play with other kids who bullied me because of my girly posture. I realized if I didn’t step out of the house, the bullying would stop. That was the first year I came first in my class,” she recalled, adding that she soon realized that to escape bullying she would have to overcompensate through hyper-masculinity. And if she had to escape caste-induced poverty, she needed to perform well at her studies, get into a better school, and take up small jobs to pay for her education. Radhika was about thirteen or fourteen when she got her first teaching gig. But reaching college didn’t turn out as Radhika had imag ined either. Stepping into that institution meant stepping beyond the realm of her ghetto. While the two areas are in the same city, they are vastly divided by visible and invisible identity dispar ities. Her college, located in one of North Delhi’s poshest areas, was filled mostly with upper-class, upper-caste students. The weight of this disparity defined her college experience. While she was able to articulate her sexuality, learn about the queer community, and come to terms with her trans identity in col lege, her caste and class location pulled her down. Woke stu dent circles spoke loudly against casteism yet sidelined her from the discourse because of her plain and modest appearance. In upper-class queer settings, where fashion often signals queer ness, anyone who’s not eye-catching is quickly pushed aside. She believes upper-caste people’s progressiveness towards caste is performative—restricted to social media stories and pub lic speeches, while their words seldom translate into any deep connections. For Dalit trans people, this double bind is sharper— their gender nonconformity already makes them hyper-visible targets of scrutiny, while their caste location and modest means make them invisible within elite queer and progressive spaces. Even at queer community events, Radhika’s caste identity made her feel excluded: “I was so excited to go as it was my first queer event where I was going to meet other gender minority people, but they were largely elite, as the event was happening in a buzzing South Delhi venue. No one came to talk to me that day, and it made me feel so confused that now I’m at a place where I should have felt comfortable, but even here my caste and class marginalization commanded my existence.” Radhika’s experience lays bare the layered exclusions that caste, class, and gender identity together enforce, even within spaces imagined as liberatory. Her journey from a cramped ghetto home to an elite Delhi college reflects resilience but also reveals how marginalization mutates—moving from overt bul lying in her neighborhood to subtle yet persistent alienation in India’s queer and progressive circles. What emerges is a sharp reminder that queerness alone cannot undo entrenched caste hierarchies.

longest time, I had to strive harder to hide my sexuality, along with the caste I was born into, to jell with people, whether it was in school or in my neighborhood, until I reached college. I think I still feel the exhaustion from trying harder to perform masculinity or have any money.” The Indian caste system is a centuries-old social hierarchy that divides people into rigid, hereditary groups based on birth, traditionally determining their occupation, social status, and access to resources, with marginalized castes facing systemic discrimination and exclusion. The people from historically op pressed and excluded groups under the caste system are called “Dalit.” Radhika studied hard to secure admission into Hindu Col lege, India’s top-ranked institution of higher learning, working Poorvi Gupta, an independent journalist based in New Delhi, writes on sociopolitical issues from a gender lens for such outlets as The Polis Project , Al Jazeera , Devex , and LGBTQ +Nation . Dalit and transgender activist Grace Banu from Tamil Nadu, India, 2017.

November–December 2025

21