‘I am who I am’: Sabi Giri joined the navy when she was 18 years old ‘I am who I am’: Sabi Giri joined the navy when she was 18 years old

It takes some convincing to make Sabi Giri answer that phone. Several WhatsApp messages go unanswered. A scheduled meeting in Delhi is cancelled at the last minute and a Skype conversation is denied (“I don’t want to be seen like this”). One would have tempted to use the word difficult if it were not for the 25-year-old’s predicament: she is fighting a court battle to be reinstated in her job. On October 5, Sabi was discharged by the navy after she underwent a gender reassignment surgery.

The Indian navy restricts the recruitment of women to certain departments. Sabi was serving in a position reserved for men, that of a naval sailor. In its response to Sabi’s petition, the Indian navy said that the existing rules of the navy do not allow Sabi’s “continued employment”. “The serving sailor … chose to undergo irreversible gender re-assignment on his own accord whilst on leave wilfully altering his gender status from the one he was recruited for at the time of his induction. He has therefore breached the Recruitment Regulations and eligibility criteria for his employment as a sailor in the Indian navy,” was the Press Information Bureau’s (Defence Wing) official response to the press. On October 31, the Delhi High Court asked the navy to consider giving Sabi a clerical post. Born into a middle-class family in Chapra, Bihar, young Manish was the only teenager in class without a love interest. “All my friends had girlfriends and boyfriends. I was the odd one out. My mother was very proud that her son had no bad habits,” says Sabi. He knew he was not like the other children. He told himself he was the studious sort and lived with it. “In college, I was bullied a bit. Boys of that age are quite ruthless. I had a hard time there,” she says. In 2010, Sabi joined the navy; she was 18. “It was a moment of great pride for my family. A boy in the sena elevates the family’s status in our part of the word,” says Sabi.

After she completed her training, she was posted at INS Ganga in Mumbai in 2011. “That’s where life took a different turn,” says Sabi. “For the first time in my life, I felt emptiness. It was not so much unhappiness as much as this gnawing feeling of losing out,” says Sabi. Her need to seek out people from the queer community was a “way to fill in the loneliness.” “I didn’t even have the vocabulary to define my feelings. Now, I knew there were other people like me,” she said.

In her second year in Mumbai, she decided to stay with her friends for about 20 days, without informing her officer in charge. “I wanted to be free for that time. You don’t know how it feels to rehearse each sentence before actually speaking it. I used to do it so that I didn’t sound too effeminate. It’s like being in a prison,” she says. As a punishment, Sabi alleges she was sent into “detention” for about three weeks. “I was not allowed to wear anything but my undergarments. I was locked into a cell and could only go out to relieve myself. Those 20-odd days broke me in many ways,” says Sabi.

Eventually, Sabi was transferred to the Visakhapatnam base. By this time, she had a sound network of friends from the queer community. That was also the time she reached out to the navy doctors. “I told them about the difficulties I was having. I told them that I could no longer identify myself as a man. They referred me for counseling,” says Sabi.

The counseling sessions would last about an hour where she says she would be advised to take these things “in her stride”, she says. Last year, a private psychiatrist and psychologist in Visakhapatnam diagnosed her with gender identity disorder. “I took a decision to go through a sex reassignment surgery,” says Sabi. The procedure was completed in Delhi last year. “I rushed back to Vizag because I had exhausted my leave,” says Sabi. The healing period of these procedures at times extend to months. “Within days of returning, I acquired a urinary tract infection. I was scared and I didn’t know who to confide in,” says Sabi.

When the navy doctors got to know about her surgery, they allegedly transferred her to the psychiatric ward as soon her infection was cured. “For six months, I was kept in the psychiatric ward, with two men keeping watch 24X7,” she says. After she was released from the psychiatric ward in 2017, Sabi reported for work. But she was slapped with a showcause notice for her service record. “They highlighted my past leave of absence. But the thing is: I was duly punished for all that,” says Sabi.

Meanwhile, the navy sent her case to the Ministry of Defence and sought their comments and action that needed to be taken in the case. “On a Friday morning, Sabi reported for work and was told she had to go. Last month, in a petition to the Delhi High Court, Sabi challenged the validity of Section 9 of the Navy Act, 1957, which allows enrolment of only male sailors. “I cannot and should not be penalised for choosing to be the person that I am. I have not cheated anyone by going through the sex reassignment surgery. I had been cheating myself all these years. I got a position in the navy because of my capabilities. I won’t let anyone take that away from me,” Sabi says. The court will hear the matter again on November 23.

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