Bangladesh has acknowledged hijra as a separate gender other than men and women since 2013. Yet, they don’t have access to their sexual reassignment surgery, body modification or hormonal therapy within a legal health framework, whereas being a hijra or transgender person is a significant health concern. Still, it’s never been considered in health policy. The body of a transgender or hijra person is always a subject of discrimination. This is not only about prejudice; it is a systematic process that colonial discourses have hegemonised. To turn hijra from a social category to a medical type, mainly covering them within the disabled framework, is an influence of medical discourses that must be addressed from an intersectional lens.
The idea of global health hardly considered the necessity of distinct health attention for gender minorities and didn't acknowledge the sociocultural psychology of health. In other words, health sociology and culture-bounded constructionism of body and health have never been exposed in global health discourse. Under the global health discourse, all people should have the opportunity to live a life that requires good health. Nevertheless, different social environments, resources, and social statuses affect the choices available to them. Achieving equity in health means addressing social discriminations and determinants and eliminating disparities in health systems and healthcare access. These efforts should be focused not only in far-away places but also on vulnerable populations such as hijra in Bangladesh.
This paper also critically analyses Hijra's body transformation process from a sociological perspective to articulate how hijra and transgender health in Bangladesh is not only a discussion of physiology but also a part of the socio-cultural construction of the body image of a male-female gender binary. It also analyses the state policy and its implementation by conducting ethnographic research among hijra in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
