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Jun 13, 2007
Quickie Link: Indian Transvestite Dancers Endure Rape And Sadism
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By vanrozenheim
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(Maharajaganj, India) - To earn a living, Kiran dresses up in women's clothes, dances at wedding parties in the Indian countryside and tries not to struggle when he is raped at knifepoint by drunken male wedding guests. The pay, he says, is pretty good. He is one of thousands of launda dancers working the wedding scene in the villages of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh states, leading the groom's raucous marching-band procession to the bride's house. They put up with routine violence because, they say, it is the only way they are free to live as "kothis", a South Asian term for effeminate men and transsexuals.
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