The Bombay high court has ruled that there is no law to prevent an adult from changing his or her sex. The court was hearing a petition filed by a student named Bidhan Barua, who calls himself Swati and says he is a woman trapped in a man’s body.
Barua’s father, Supti Ranjan, has taken the court’s ruling rather badly. He told a newspaper that Bidhan’s behaviour has brought disrepute to the family and that the court ought to have found out what he, as a parent, feels about it.
It is understandable that he is surprised, and hurt. However, his son is now legally an adult and therefore free to decide his own future for better or worse. Mr Ranjan’s bewilderment is attributable, at least partly, to technology.
Human societies and how lives are lived on a daily basis have, arguably, changed more in the past 100 years than in the 10,000 that preceded it. This is because of technology. Most of the activities that take up all our time were unimaginable even a few years ago. People didn’t spend time on the Internet, or watch satellite TV, or chat on mobile phones, because none of these things were accessible.
Human relationships, including sexual ones, too are not immune to the effects of technology. Women’s liberation and the resulting upswing in premarital sex, for example, owe a lot to contraception.
Sex-change operations are only another aspect of technological change. As medical science advances, we can be sure that more people will want to choose their gender.