Manvi Arora (she, her, hers or they) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow who has recently finished her term at University of Montreal. She’s a volunteer Researcher with Association for Transgender Health in India (ATHI) and is also associated with Simone De Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University as Affiliated Assistant Professor. She holds a Ph.D degree in Education, from the University of Delhi, along with three post-graduate degrees in the disciplines of Psychology, Sociology and Education respectively.

This conference was organised in the context of short lunch conferences by the CRC ReParE for the fall semester of 2024.

Summary:
India was a colony of the British Empire for two centuries. During these two centuries, the impact of colonial rule was not limited to politics or economics, but extended to all spheres of Indian society, including the education system. This conference will attempt to shed light on the impact of colonisation on the Indian education system by exploring the ideological roots of the colonial rulers' indulgence of mass education and its continuing impact on the mode of teaching, the curriculum and pedagogy, the assessment system, the identity of the teacher and the funding of education. The conference will also address the conflicts between the indigenous and colonial education systems and their enduring impact on the current model of institutionalised education in Indian classrooms. Finally, the conference will focus on India's methodical response over the last century to decolonise education.


Biography:
Manvi Arora is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Social Work. A volunteer researcher with the Association for Transgender Health in India (ATHI), she holds a PhD in Education from the University of Delhi. After starting her career as a secondary school English teacher, she has worked closely with national and international NGOs and community organisations fighting for education and identity rights in India.

India, largest global democracy also has the largest population of transgender people in the world. Despite sizable number and a visible form of conventional-transfeminine population, Transgender and Gender Diverse individuals of the country have been marginalized and ostracized by a society that once worshipped gender fluidity. Transgender community lacked legislative protection, social acceptance, means to social mobility, claims to civil rights and to life of dignity until last couple of decades.

Recent progressive legislations, such as the landmark Supreme Court Judgement of 2014 (popularly known as the NALSA judgement), The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, are miniscule but unprecedented attempts to redress century long discrimination towards the community.

However, in strong political will and realization of urgency of empowering the long neglected community the focus on socio-medical, legal and educational rights of TGDY are completely absent from Indian Trans-rights discourse. Thus, representation of an entire community who do not conform to hegemonic ways of performing gender and have not attained majority is deliberately invisiblized.

This session will deconstruct the attitude of Indian society towards youth in general and Transgender and Gender Diverse youth in specific, situated within the characteristic diversities of India. The influence of social nexus on TGDY’s identity development, psychological and physiological well-being will be highlighted. Attempt will also be made to examine the scope provided to TGDY in implementations of recent administrative and legislative initiatives in the field of education, human rights and health. The discussion is based on first hand experiences of Indian youth who have been in the space where idealistic socialization comes face to face with non-normative instinctual existence and results in negotiation, conflict, resistance, transformation and possibilities for spectrum of existence within Indian context.

About our speaker

Manvi Arora (elle) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université de Montréal and a volunteer researcher with the Association for Trans Health in India (ATHI). She holds a doctorate in education from the University of Delhi. She also holds three postgraduate degrees in psychology, sociology and education. For over a decade, she has worked closely with Indian trans communities to defend their rights to education and recognition of their identities. She is one of the authors and members of the committee responsible for developing national guidelines and training materials for the inclusion of trans children in the Indian school system, focusing on their concerns and the way forward, with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) of the Indian government. Her interdisciplinary knowledge helps her to unravel the lived realities and social challenges associated with non-conformity to prescribed gender norms, an area of research neglected by Indian academics and one that is currently focused on making the voices of Indian trans and non-binary people heard. She heads up the Indian component of the CIHR-funded international longitudinal research project entitled ‘Growing up trans’, of which she is one of the co-authors, and in which the Research Chair on trans children and their families is also participating to testify.

Charles-Antoine Thibeault (UdeM - Université de Montréal), Manvi Arora (UdeM - Université de Montréal), Annie Pullen Sansfaçon (UdeM - Université de Montréal)

It is frequently reported that there are various barriers to accessing gender-affirming medical care (GAMC), including lack of parental support (Clark et al., 2020), distance, lack of knowledge of care providers and lack of social support (Taylor et al., 2020). While these studies provide a bleak picture of access to SMAGs for young people in New Brunswick, they offer little information about the factors influencing the decisions of young people in New Brunswick and their families in the decision-making processes faced by parents and children in New Brunswick as they approach puberty.


To meet this need, a team of researchers conducted semi-structured interviews in 6 countries (Canada, Switzerland, England, Australia, India and the United States) to find out more about the impact of the SMAG search process on the well-being of 8-14 year-old TNB children and their families. The preliminary results of this study provide an overview of the factors influencing medical decisions and the well-being of Canadian and Australian families. We will first present the factors influencing families' decision-making process (fear of medical procedures, fertility preservation, importance of dysphoria, barriers to access, and medical recommendations), and then discuss the impact of access, refusal of access, or delay in access, on the well-being of young NBDs and their families.