The movie Joyland was obviously intended to bring joy to the society. I do not suspect the intentions of its producers but I am certainly amazed at its directors, script writers and acting team. Sometimes it so happens that an idea is floated in a group of people, and the nobility of the idea catches flame immediately. I can imagine a get-together of artists and suddenly someone floated the idea of producing a movie to elevate the status of intersex born in our society. Obviously it’s a fantastic idea ! I would have hailed the idea too.
Wait ! Did I just say, intersex ? Or did I mean to say, transgender ? No, I intentionally said, intersex, because its been just a few months that I have been cyber educated by the blessed speakers of the YouthClub who elaborated that whom we have been naming transgender for so long are actually intersex folks. Intersex, are people who have a default sex by birth, having both sexes together or none. Whereas transgenders are those who are born fine biologically but suffer from some hormonal and/or psychological problems due to which a man wants to become a woman or a woman wants to become a man. Question is, was the introduction of the word ‘transgender’ instead of the word ‘intersex’ in the Eastern society, a linguistic mistake or an intentional pun ?
The intersex folks are the truly marginalized people of our society and their issues need attention on an emergency basis. We, the Eastern society, have been truly criminal for ignoring them for the longest of times. As a child I remember seeing them doing the catwalk at traffic signals, dancing at weddings, clapping their hands horrendously and having laughter and money thrown at them. Disgrace … upon us !
Now just as I was about to appreciate the West for their sensitivity, I suddenly notice that they are no better than us. Rather they are worse for their trickery ! See the acronym LGBTQ+ ? There is no ‘I’ in it ! The L stands for Lesbians … yuck ! The G stands for Gays … yuck ! The B stands for Bisexual … yuck ! The T stands for Transgenders … seriously ? And the Q stands for Queer … indeed ! Understatement ! And the + stands for ? More idiotic ideas ? But where is the ‘I’ ? There is no ‘I’ to stand for the Intersex folks ? In this entire great global LGBTQ+ movement, the intersex folks have once again been ignored !
Was it so then that sympathy was created for the intersex and the benefit transferred to the transgender ?
Really, who are you actually working for ?
“Whom Allah has cursed. For he had said, ‘I will surely take from among Your servants a specific portion. And I will mislead them, and I will arouse in them sinful desires, and I will command them so they will slit the ears of cattle, and I will command them so they will change the creation of Allah.’ And whoever takes Satan as an ally instead of Allah has certainly sustained a clear loss. Satan promises them and arouses desires in them, but Satan does not promise them anything except delusion. The refuge of those will be Hell, and they will not find from it any escape.” [The Holy Quran @ 4:119]
And so the transgenders, born well and healthy by the Grace of Allah Almighty, start messing with themselves. Changing their appearance to the opposite sex, changing their behavior to the opposite sex and changing their anatomy to the opposite sex … yes some even go to the extent of getting biologically operated to change into the opposite sex. How sad ! Can you imagine ? If you were actually born with a biological sex disorder and had no choice to play around and fix your anatomy, what would you do then ?
But the good news is that you can. Yes, in some cases, intersex people can be given medical treatment, hormonal and surgical, and they can be fixed back towards the dominant sex in them. Just like if a baby is born without sight, hearing or speech, albeit that such children are now named ‘special’, the medical world does everything in their power to restore the human ‘normality’, because some specialties are only honorary!
For a moment I even thought, when I heard all this hue and cry about the movie ‘Joyland’, that perhaps the religious whistle blowers have taken to the extreme sides once again, which we do at times, and are hollering all for nothing. But then I researched and read. I read all I could possibly find out about the movie. After all, none of us have actually seen the movie so perhaps we are letting our imagination run away with us our premonitions. My good hopes were dashed when I read that the movie Joyland had already been world premiered at 2022 Cannes Film Festival on 23 May 2022, received a standing ovation after its screening and won the Jury Prize by beating other LGBTQ themed films at the movie festival ! Unbelieveable silence …
The Joyland team, you must be truly talented to have achieved such an international acclaim, but couldn’t you have made the movie to highlight the plight of the intersex folks, who truly deserve our attention ? You claim to be showing the reality ? Aren’t the intersex folks the real reality of our society ? You claim to be promoting compassion and love ? Is promoting extra-marital affairs in anyway helping the love-less relationships of the married couples of our society ?
