Accepted Panels

 The paper traces the transition of the researcher from an ‘og’(Original) to ‘Tg’(Transgender) in the ethnographic fieldwork among the transgender people. By looking at the various identifications attributed to the researcher by the interlocutors, the study proposes a decolonial approach that demands a careful attention to the categories and the differential values placed on it in the context of Kerala.  Foregrounding the categories such as ‘og’, ‘naaran’ , stree (woman) and ‘tg’, I argue that the universal category of transgender fails to embrace the diversity among the people who are supposed to belong to its fold. The paper emerges out of my interaction with transwoman located in the urban district of Ernakulam in Kerala. By looking at a series of categories emerged through interaction in the field and juxtaposing this with the positionality of the researcher, I reinstate the contingent, flexible nature of identity categories. Looking at the categories emerging is itself an attempt to resist the ways in which identities turn to be vectors in which transgender people are taken up by projects which are not their own making (Malatino 2019). This has implications in my research as it started off with the pre-given institutionalised category of ‘transgender’ and still adhere to it in many ways due to the institutionalised and academic constraints. The attempt is to shift the focus away from categories to the processes that give rise to various identifications. It has implications in defying the binary and tertiary gendered categories prominent in academic and activist discussions in contemporary times.