Intertextual Sexuality: Parodies of Class, Identity, and Desire in Liminal Delhi

Abstract

This article examines articulations of class, identity, and desire as performed by a com- munity of kotis in northern India, a transgender group that impersonates a second trans- gender group known as hijras in a staged event called “hijra-acting.” Through a linguistic parody of lower-class hijras performing a birth celebration for their upper- class patrons, kotis critique the class-based animosity between hijra and gay sexualities in contemporary India, spoofing the sexual desires associated with both groups as infe- rior to their own. The analysis demonstrates that identity and desire are best understood as mutually constituted intertextual phenomena, with both importantly reliant on ideo- logical linkages of language and socioeconomic class for their articulation.