Third Gender Recognition : Tamil Transgender women in the forefront and their pioneering work

August 14^th, 2010

The day before the 63^rd Independence day of India. The golden day when the first seed for legal recognition of India’s third gender people was sown. The venue was Madras Judicial Academy.

It was an important day when the some of the highest Judicial Authorities gathered in the Chennai, the capital of Tamilnadu state. Department of Social Welfare of the Tamilnadu government, Madras High Court, Tamilnadu State Legal Services Authority,National Legal Services Authority and the Madras Judicial Academy joined hands and organised the SEMINAR ON ISSUES RELATED TO TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY. This was the first event when the highest judiciary of India could hear the transgender community’s dilemma in person, face to face, heart to heart. This was the event that tore open for the truths to bare all, the event that sensitized the some of the country’s greatest change makers.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Altamas Kabir, Chief Justice of the Madras Highcourt M.Y.Iqbal, Supreme court Judge Shri Sadasivam, Minister of Social Welfare Geetha Jeevan, Director of the Department of Social Welfare Mrs. Nirmala and the state one of the highest Police official Archana Ramachandran were the prominent participating guests in the event.

Once the protocol speeches were over, it was time for us, the transgender community to speak. I, as a representative of the community, I had been waiting for this great opportunity to present the problems faced by the transgender people.  I was on the dias sitting opposite the Honourable Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Altamas Kabir giving him an emotional speech supported by a powerpoint presentation on the problems faced by the transgender people of India. I started from childhood, teenage and went to speak to the Judge about what dilemma and terror we faced in schools as transgender kids, the bullying, the harassment, the lack of understanding and counseling support, the life in fear and depression at such an young age.  I spoke to the Judges in detail about the discriminations faced by us in the public, the lack of education that has ultimately resulted the community to resort to begging and sex work. Abandoned by family and becoming beggars and sex workers, all our dreams crashed, we become unwanted people in the society.

Activist Priyababu spoke in detail about the possible solutions for the problems faced by the community, senior activist Noori and community voices Noorjahan and Selvi also spoke about the problems transgender women face in the society.

This was the first event in the Indian history when the transgender community could directly speak in detail about our problems to the country’s Supreme court Judges who were the members of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).

After this event, on 4^th February 2011 National Legal Services Authority with technical support from United Nations Development Program organized a National Seminar at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. The Seminar was titled ‘Transgender and the Law’. This was the first National seminar that discussed the legal rights and recognizing the third gender people of India.

Transgender and the Law, New Delhi

The man who was responsible for initiating this seminar was the then Supreme court Judge and the head of NALSA, Shri. Altamas Kabir sir. This seminar was the follow up of the first seminar held in Chennai.

Hundreds of Judges from all over India, including some of the prominent supreme court, high court and district court Judges were present in the event. The highest ranking Police officers from all over the country were also present in the event. It was a historical day in the transgender rights movement. Along with Honourable Justice Altamas Kabir sir who was also the Executive Chairman of NALSA, were other eminent Judges like the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court M.Y.Iqbal, New Delhi High Court Chief Justice Deepak Mishra and Justice Vikramajit Sen. UNDP Country Director Caitley Weisen was present at the event as well.

As activists and transgender community representatives, I and Priyababu were the two people from the South of India who were there to do presentations and deliver speeches to sensitize the officials. From the North were Gauri Sawant, Laxmi Narayan Tripati and Sabeena Francis.

The highlight of this seminar was the speeches and presentations by the transgender activists which aimed to sensitize the Judiciary on the problems of the transgender people of India whose life can only see ray of hope and an equal life like any other citizen of the country. After the protocol speeches by the chief guests and the hosts of the event, the Judges and Police officerrs were requested to be seated in two different halls. It was time for us to speak. I and Priyababu were in one hall and Lakshmi Natrayan Tripati, Gauri Sawant and Sabeena was in the other speaking, answering and interacting with the Judges on the transgender people’s life in India. I was sitting next to Cheif Justice sir, a very noble and kind person. He was listening to me very carefully and during his speech I could see how much of a deep understanding he has on the transgender issue.

Lawyer Laya Medhini from Article 39, Dr. Venkatesh Chakrapani, Akila Das from CFAR, Ernest Noronha from UNDP and Sonal Mehta were some of the people who were present there. Ernest Noronha’s amazing background work on the transgender rights issue is notable here. Working in UNDP, transgender rights has been one of the key issues close to his heart and he has contributed tremendously for the community’s legalisation and empowerment in a big way through UNDP.

Following this seminar,  a number of meetings and seminars were organised by State Legal Services Authorities of various states. I spoke at the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority’s seminar and  at the seminar organized by Guahati University in Assam. I was invited by the Indian Judicial Academy and once again met Judiciary from all over the country and spoke infront of them insisting the very importance of legalising our gender and procuring our rights. I also spoke at the Jindal Global School of Law on the same issue stressing on acknowledging our rights as citizens of this country.

Kalki with Judge I.A.Ansari in Gauhati University

Kalki speaks

Activist Jeeva spoke at the State Judicial meeting at Raichur and at Hyderabad, Olga and Bharati Kannamma also spoke at various meetings. At the district level Judicial meetings, Sangeetha spoke at Coimbatore, Kajol at Trichy and Viji at Tuticorin did their best to take the issue in front of the Judiciary and voiced for social justice and legal recognition for transgender people.

Akkai did the work in Karnataka following in the steps of her predecessors like Pamela and Revathi, Seetha and Rudhra Chetri did it at New Delhi, Ranjita Sinha and Amitava Sarkar did fabulous work in West Bengal. There were a number of activists from other states who did similar work with passion for determination for our rights and recognition.

Priyababu at TN state Judicial Academy

 Jeeva Speaks

The result of this great hard work by transgender women in sensitizing the Judiciary of India and advocating for our rights finally reaped its results. NALSA filed a Social Jutice Litigation with the Supreme Court of India in 2013. The case was known as NALSA v/s Union of India. After almost an year and a half, on 15th April 2014 the Supreme Court of India recognised transgender people legally. It also directed the state and central government to take proactive measures.

For almost a decade, UNDP has done tremendous ground work and has supported in our battle towards legal recognition of the third gender.

From Priyababu filing a PIL in Madras High Court in 2005 for voting rights, Revathi bringing the first book revealing the transgender people's life in our own voice, to Swapna Karthik fighting in the court for the rights of  transgender people to enter into civil services, it is an indisputable fact that the Indian transgender movement’s battle for legal recognition started in Tamilnadu. I say it with great pride that the Tamil transwomen have contributed largely and powerfully by voicing for the community’s rights and taking actions in the right direction in our country. Certainly, the legal recognition of third gender would have not have been possible with out the immense contribution of Transwomen from Tamilnadu.

April 15th, the day the third gender people were recognized legally in India, should be announced as National Transgender day. Jai Hind!

Kalki Subramaniam at the Indian Judicial Academy, Bhopal

REFERENCES:

August 14th, 2010:

Tamilnadu Seminar:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1159795.ece

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/135025/judges-favour-law-social-acceptance.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Jurists-call-for-laws-quota-to-ensure-transgenders-rights/articleshow/6312542.cms?referral=PM

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-govt-should-enact-law-to-protect-transgenders-rights-experts-1423384

Feb 4^th, 2011

National Seminar:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1159795.ece http://www.deccanherald.com/content/135025/judges-favour-law-social-acceptance.html

Support Sahodari Foundation's initiatives. Please visit www.sahodari.org to know all our work for the transgender community.

Young India - My journeys in teaching gender diversity and gender equality to our children

The importance of teaching Indian Children to celebrate and respect Gender Diversity and Gender Equality and how teachers have a major role to play...

Kalki speaks to students of Mont fort International School - 2011

 If we need to create a safe and respectable future for our young trans and non-binary Indians, we need to start the right education from schools for inclusiveness.

If Indian schools want their students to be the best, they must teach students to be compassionate, inclusive, open-minded and humane with higher values. They must teach the children about gender equality and gender diversity and it must be a priority in Indian schools.  It must be included as a part of the education curriculum.

Traveling around India speaking, advocating for transgender people's rights and sensitizing thousands of university and college students, I strongly believe, if we want our children to be confident and exercise their rights of equal opportunities fearlessly, if we need to curb the violence against women, if we need to stop rape, if we want our young men to value women and womanhood, then we MUST teach the young Indians about gender diversity and gender equality. I always say in my speeches, 'A society which respects and values women, will respect and value transgenders and third gender people'. If today's youngsters have the right knowledge about genders, they will treat women as equals and not as objects of pleasure and to be used and discarded.

Kalki is welcomed by the school authority at Mont Fort

It pains me to see transgender people beg for money from the shop to shop, in the trains and public utilities. It pains me to see them queuing up to pick up clients for sex work. The majority of them are not qualified enough to go for a better job and have a better livelihood. The livelihood opportunities are very limited, the major reason is that majority of the transgender population are school dropouts. They are unqualified to pursue white-collar jobs. The only well paying profession is sex work. So they opt for it. Eventually, they are unable to come out of this vicious circle and continue to do this till they are wanted.

If India needs to change, the teachers can be the catalysts of change.  I have an urgency about addressing the desperate situation of teenagers at school who may be gender non conforming. I prioritize it as of higher importance.

 In their Approach Paper on Education and Employment opportunities & Challenges for Transgender presented to the Ministry of Social Justice, Government of India, Dr Rajesh (Head) and MD Aslam Naved(Research Scholar), Faculty of Social Science from University of Delhi have mentioned the following:
"Absence of community sensitive teachers: Influenced by predominant norms and values of society, teachers accused transgender persons. The insensitivities of teachers and staff towards the community have an adverse impact on the mainstream transgender persons in educational institutes. The teachers and staff do not have adequate knowledge and sensitivities about the community to support the transgender community in making education accessible and mainstream them into the system. The transgender person who is already excluded from the family and society does not find any support with the teachers and therefore forced to discontinue the education in between."

Today the society looks so cheaply on transgender people who beg and do sex work. Do you know that we, transgenders, too were children once upon a time, we were teased, bullied or even abused at schools, rejected by our parents. Many of us wanted to continue schools and graduate, but those dreams were shattered, left in the vicious lurch of darkness with a very uncertain and insecure future.

Gender Diversity - an art by Kalki Subramaniam

If only those children were not bullied at schools, if the teachers had been supportive and caring towards them, if the families had accepted them as they are, they would not be living this lower self-esteemed life, this feeling of being an outcast, this feeling of worthlessness would not have been there at all.

We keep creating generations of transgender beggars and sex workers by denying their opportunities. It is time we stopped it, the law and government are gearing towards helping those transgenders by legally recognizing us and passing bills at the houses for those who live in shackles to claim their space for equal opportunities at all spheres like any other citizen of India.

Group photo after the seminar on Gender diversity at Mont Fort International School, 2011

 Law can protect us, but how far can law or a bill change the stigmatizing behavior of the society? Can the government or judiciary bring the change in the mindset of a common man? How long will it take?

Encouraging students to understand Gender Diversity through art

As a mother who could never be one biologically, and as a citizen of this country, I care to protect our gender non conforming children from stigma and discrimination and ensure a very safe, secure and happy life for them. I do not want to see another generation of beggars and sex workers. To achieve this challenging goal, it is of great importance to teach our children about gender diversity and gender equality. But how do we do it?

Kalki with the faculties and staff of Montfort school - 2011

We do it in schools. Do we educate students? Yes, but before that, we must educate the teachers. We, the people who work for the rights of gender non conforming people and transgenders, must consider the issue as prime importance and work on educating the teachers in schools all across India.

For the past nine years, I have spoken at a number of academic institutions, colleges, and universities across the country on transgender rights. Students and academicians raise all sorts of interesting questions on gender diversity and I answer them all. I think educating the educators is of prime importance presently as they need to completely understand the spectrum and fluidity of gender identity and sexual orientation. This understanding will help them to educate the students in the schools about gender diversity so that the students understand that "It is okay to be different" and will be tolerant and understanding those who are gender non conforming or transgender.

I was invited by a pioneering academic institution the Montfort International School in Yercaud. I visited the school in 2011 and again in 2013 for a special lecture to the students on gender diversity. Speaking to students about gender diversity is a very challenging task. You need to get into their mindsets, speak in their language without being offensive and tough. It was challenging for me but not for them. However, I was very successful in making them understand that gender is a spectrum and we must be open-hearted to accept everyone as who they are. They clearly understood my message, threw me all sorts of questions with a very humane and broad perspective. For me, as an activist, it was the richest and the most satisfying experience I had. Children are pure, more balanced, and more open compassionate, and friendly than most adults I have seen.


The love and affection children show me is something I can't explain. They make me go breathless with their showers of sweetness. They have no reservations to accept me as I am. They see me as a person, not as a transgender. Isn't that awesome?
Isn't that great? If we teach them to be tolerant, compassionate, inclusive, look at things from a humane perspective, accept people as they are, not being bias with gender, caste, religion, race, skin color, economic value, or health.

Where do they teach this education? I want to go back to a school where I can unlearn so many things I was taught and learn afresh. If children love me for the person I am if they are able to see me beyond my 'transgender' identity, why is it so hard for adults to do it? Aren't the adult minds saturated with the poison of hatred and prejudice? When these people's children grow up, these prejudices are slowly passed onto them and their mindsets to become narrow and short.

A teacher has a major role to play in teaching boys and girls to respect each other and acknowledge their equal space. Likewise, a teacher has a major role in making the children understand that India is not only a country with many languages, cultures, traditions and religions, India had a history in being tolerant, in accepting the different identities of genders of people and respecting their space in the society.

It is important to educate the teachers on gender diversity. Followed by Montfort, I had spoken at Vishwasanthi Vidyalaya Matriculation school at Kotagiri and also at the remote Nilgiris place Kil Kotagiri Government higher secondary school. Unlike Montfort, where children from economically sound families study, the students of Kil Kotagiri Government Higher Secondary School come from poor families from the surrounding small villages. Children are children everywhere. I was touched by their keenness in understanding transgender people's rights and place in the society. The boys came up with so many questions on the social status of the transgender people. They were concerned about bringing solutions to poor transgender people's problems. That noble thought of their was overwhelming me.

Chennai is the most tolerant city for transgender people in Tamilnadu, yet schools of Chennai had not taken up the issue of transgender to be discussed at school, and have yet to organize sessions on Gender Diversity. State Bank Officers Association School was one of the first schools in Chennai to organise such a sensitizing program on gender diversity for its students. I will be happy if other schools begin to organize such events and invite speakers to educate the students and faculties.

Kalki talks to students at Kil Kotagiri Higher Secondary School

I appeal schools to:

• Invite gender activists to speak on gender equality.
• Invite transgender rights activists to speak to students about gender diversity and transgender issues.
• Organize sensitization and awareness programs for teachers, faculties and school staff on gender diversity and understanding gender non conforming students, handling bullying and being supportive to gender non conforming students.
• Screen films that teach children on gender diversity and gender equality.

Educatng Gender Diversity: Kalki Subramaniam with the students of SBOA School, Chennai

Dear reader, the Change can be brought only by people like you and me. Let us be the catalysts of change. Visit our website Sahodari Foundation. Support Sahodari Foundation's initiatives. Please visit www.sahodari.org to know all our work for the transgender community.

Write to me : aurokalki@gmail.com

Resources and reference links:

Transgender children - an article by Kalki Subramaniam in Orinam.net

Transgender activist stresses education for empowerment - The Hindu

Rights of Trangender persons Bill 2014 India

Kalki Subramaniam on Gender Diversity - Speech at IIT Madras

Tamil Nadu Schools to Invite Transgender Activists and Counselors to Take Gender Identity Sessions

Why art is so important for Indian transgender people?

The majority of Indian transgender population (census of India 2011 survery says 4.88 lakhs, but it could be 5 times higher) is not educated, mostly ostracised by the family, thrown out of our homes and have lost the opportunity to study at school or college. This rejection makes us disqualified for well paid jobs and pushes us into the street for begging and sex work to make money to meet all their needs.

While food and shelter become a priority, education fades away as a distant dream for us, and art is something not in our priority and needy list at all, we see it only in films or occasionally in newspapers and ignore. But I, being a transgender woman who was one of the lucky few to be accepted and adored by my family, had the privilege to get educated and to travel the world, and as well be an artist, knew the importance of art in our lives, the transgender people’s lives.

When you can’t write what you think, when you can not wisely express the issue that is bothering you and bothering others, when you have an urgency to speak out a need or burst with happiness and euphoria, but don’t have words, or ears to listen to your words, art comes as a powerful medium to express.

Our  Art show at Central University, Thiruvaroo

Art comes to heal you. To balance, to pacify and bring out those emotions exactly as they are. Raw, colourful, abstract, bizarre and bursting as much as we, the transgender people are.

It began as a personal journey for me at the age of 13. I used to draw, paint and write poetry when no one could understand the gender non conformity I was going through. The internal struggles could not be expressed in sounds and speech. I wrote poetry and made art to live myself, my self. Art was a therapy, I had no doctor to help me, no psychiatrist to counsel and guide me, and I found great solace in painting and poetry. Years later, I published my poetry book in Tamil and began my career as an artist besides the other identities I don.

Making art heals me from the wounds and scars of the past, art heals the pain I had to go through of who I wanted to be and how the world perceived it and shamed it. For thousands of transgender men and women in our country and around the world, art could mean so much. Indeed, art can change our lives for better, make us healed healthy human beings. Make us the healers.

Transwoman Vinitha in Sahodari's art workshop

I became more balance after I started to paint. I wanted to give that wonderful experience to my sisters. Recently, we at Sahodari Foundation held an art & healing workshop for 10 transgender women from underprivileged backgrounds. It was a three days workshop held in Satdarshan, a serene quiet holistic centre in the middle of forests of Western ghats near Anaikatti hills, Coimbatore.

From day one, all the ten women participants were passionate about learning, drawing lines to circles and shades to shadows, they learnt the basic with attention and focus. We did not miss to play and have fun in between. The first two days were the basics, on the second day in the after noon, the girls began to sketch their art on canvas.

Kalki breaks the stereotypes on art and creativity and prepares them to learn

That evening, the magic began to manifest. Colours began to flow, shapes began to fill, emptiness began to vanish and creativity was bubbling in the room. There were smiles, sizzling chats and each participant was constantly going to the art teacher requesting help to help, asking him doubts and questions. The canvases began their journeys filled with joyful colours there. One by one, the women were completing their first art on canvas in life. There was excitement. That night we had bon fire and danced till we ached.

The third and the final day of the workshop was buzz with activities, time was too short and those who had done their first art pieces started to do their second, those who were in the middle of making their first art work were a little concerned if they could finish it in time. Some even forgot their breakfast and were immersed in their canvas. Between breaks, we had games and dance performances too. Our art teacher and friend, Hariparthan was full of patience, instructing and guiding them all one by one, supervising their art, giving ideas and helping with brush strokes. The final output of the girls were spectacular. See for yourself their patience and hardwork and some of their art.

The amazing workshop ended with wonderful pieces of artworks created by people who have never touched an art brush in their life. I was totally happy to see their excitement. Soon, Sahodari Foundation will be organizing an exhibition to showcase their talents to the worlds. Any sale of artworks will completely go to the artists who created it. The time came to go our ways, to our places and once again face the world. The girls took with them the joy of creating, the experience of peace and togetherness, an unforgotteable gift of art making.We packed our bags, got into the tempo traveller waiting for us and reached Coimbatore. We hugged and kissed and almost were in tears and said good bye to each other. Yet, the excitement was there in us throughout.

Art opens us a new world of possibilities, it heals our wounds and scars of the past and balances us, it playfully takes us to the colourful path of the future. Making art is a sacred experience for the transgender community of India, like dance and music, art will become an important part for celebration and healing oneself. Art can also help our livelihood too, we need to tap our talents with focus and dare to experiment boldly. I thank our friends Matilda, Elin, Cris Cyders for immense support.

I thank my friend artist Hariparthan for teaching art in a friendly way. I thank Anand and Satdarshan for the place. I thank our friends Prema and Heena for the wonderful food preparations and looking after us like mothers. I thank Sadhu the little puppy who played with us through out our stay and mama who was very supportive.

I heard Viji speaking to other girls :

When I go back home, I will go to a store and purchase art materials and canvas, I will practice more and make more artworks. I am astonished to discover that I could make art”.

Support Sahodari Foundation's initiatives. Please visit www.sahodari.org to know all our work for the transgender community.

Be a child, bring back the magic :D

Kalki Subramaniam

Make life lighter. Be a child. Laugh :D, Smile :)

Like the jetlag that haunts after a long flight trip,  people from the corporate and the I.T world are haunted with long and endless boredom due to the monotonous work that they do everyday, doing the same things over and over again, living a life of dullness.

The secret to fizzle out that boredom and stress lies within you. Bring back your jazzy life.  The key to bring back that sizzling magic is to relish and relive your childhood.  Here are the first steps to go back to those days and yet be present in the moment now.

Point 1: Collect your childhood things which are left out in the old shelfs, boxes, sack bags, drawers and in the barn. Your old sketches, little scrapbooks, dairies, little presents which you thought mean of no value now and the toys. More important collect your childhood and teenage photographs

organize them and put them into an album. Clean up all your childhood items, organize and keep them in a place where only you’d access them.

Point2: Write a small note over each picture bringing back whatever you remember about the time when the picture was shot.Keep the album safe.

Point 3:  Take a new notebook: Hey hey, I amn’t talking about the machine, I mean the real paper notebook. That’s your Joy Book. We’ll call it Your name’s Joy Book. Now,  the Joy book is going to be your treasure of memories from your childhood and teenage.

Point 4:  Thr Joy Book will have only happy and sweet memories, right from your childhood to this moment when you are reading this article.

Point 5: Start writing down all the sweet memories of your life one by one. It need not be in an order or in a timeline. Jot down anything you remember in a few lines or as much description as you wish to write about that sweet memory. Your first bicycle, your first  best friend and the most beautiful memory with him/her, the day you bunked college with friends to see Rajnikant’s movie, the excitement you had when you received your first salary etc. Jot down everything whenever you remember and keep writing.

Point 6: Keep your Joy Book safe and take it out whenever you wanted to write.

Point 7: One mistake we all make is to get swept away in work and in the present life and forget the people in our past who made our life beautiful. Call up your old friends if you have their numbers, trace them on facebook and write a mail to them. Bringing back those people in your life once again makes life more jazzy and colourful.

Point 8: Have you been thankful to your mom and dad who gave you a life and who made you the person you are today? Give them a surprise gift and pamper their soul. Their blessings mean so much to you. See happiness in their face when their hearts bloom. Continue that habit of keeping your parents happy which should be on the top of your priority list.

Point 9:  Search for your favourite teacher from your school life and his whereabouts. Give him/her a surprise visit and get his blessings. Gift him with a special something and make him happy. You’d come across a rush of happiness and all old sweet memories filling your heart.

Point 10: Find out that one simple wish of yours that is long over due, your one chinna chiina aasai that doesn’t involve money. Make it happen this week, make it a reality.

Point 10: Dance!

Hey, don’t forget to jot in all the sweet memories that have garlanded your soul. Now, read your Joy       Book whenever you wanted to and relish in the joy of living. Kill that boredom with happiness through making people happy. Go get that sleezy, jazzy life and wake up that child in you to find true happiness.

Ah, it is raining outside my window while I write this, time for me to get wet along with the flowers.  Let me fulfill my chinna chinna aasai once more. Ciao..J

Kalki Subramaniam is a Transgender rights activist, artist, actor, writer and founder of Sahodari Foundation. Her website is www.kalkisubramaniam.com. You can write to her at: aurokalki@gmail.com.

Nobody wants to be exploited sexually

 Written for

blog

Story First Published: April 16, 2014 10:14 IST the next day of the Supreme Court of India's verdict recognizing transgender people as third gender.

Tuesday will be remembered forever as an important day for the transgender people of India.

Non-heterosexuality and transgenderism are not new in our society and the history of our country has recorded transgender people's presence all over.

The transgender community has been listed as a criminal tribe since a century ago during the British empire and since then has been misunderstood, ostracised, marginalised and discriminated till today.

This ignorance has driven us out of our homes and families and till today, the transgenders of India have remained as beggars seeking their rights and have been exploited sexually.

Though abandoned by our families, we are embraced by other transgender people in the hijjra community. For a transgender person, it is really hell of a life to live in a society that completely misunderstands that because of the social ignorance and prevalence throughout.

The historical Supreme Court judgment will pave the way for social recognition and family acceptance which is very important for any transgender person. At this moment, I salute my fellow activists who joined hands with me in the battle for equality.

We have been fighting for so many years now. It is a very proud moment for this handful of educated and not-so-educated people from the community who broke the barrier and continued their life with courage, and rose up to voice their rights.

If we talk about India's laws today, Article 21 in our Constitution already ensures right to privacy and personal dignity for all citizens including transgenders. Article 23 prohibits trafficking human beings and beggars, forced labour etc.

Three Transwomen - an art by Kalki Subramaniam

There are many such articles, especially article 14 and 15 that prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, sex or place of birth.

These laws are not only for men and women. They also talk about a person, a citizen of India, and transgender people are citizens of India. These laws protect all people including transgenders, but they have been doing so only in books

Practically speaking this judgment will be an important one and it will pave the way in the future for recognition at various levels for right to education, employment, speech, housing, family, marriage and adoption of children. All this will be possible for transgender people through this historical and wonderful judgment.

For many years now, transgender activists from across the country have been sensitising the judiciary of India and also advocating with the policy makers of the country for recognising our rights and also for including us in all welfare measures. It is our right to live a dignified life.

No one wants to be a beggar. No one wants to be exploited sexually. We want to live like any other human being in this country. We deserve a family. We also deserve happiness. We also have the social obligation and thirst to contribute to the country's welfare - for the civil society.

And abandoning or ostracising us will make us live a nightmarish life. This judgment has shown us hope for our future and for generations coming up. At least the next generation of transgender people will not be begging or doing sex work because this legal decision has paved the way for us.

Transgender teenagers can now continue their studies...dropouts will reduce enormously.

Most transgenders today are begging and doing sex work because they are school dropouts. They are not qualified to get a good job.

This judgment will ensure that they get good education which will result in a well-qualified job. Even if a family abandons them, they can choose to live an economically independent life.

I personally welcome this judgment because I wanted to have a family. I wanted to marry and though I can't bear children, I wanted to adopt and marry the person I love. This judgment shows me hope that it is possible to have that life. 

The original article can be found at NDTV blog here

Dying Young – The death of two young transsexual women

This is an article about how I lost two of my transsexual friends who died in the prime of their youth and how both of them could have been saved only if our social, legal and family systems had been more supportive to transpeople.

When I migrated from Auroville to Chennai, Sathya was one of the first few transgender persons I met.  Transwoman and friend Rose and I used to visit Sahodaran to meet and socialize with other transgender and gay people. It is here that I met Sathya. She was a beautiful and plumpy girl. She was warm and had a lovely smile on her face. She was friendly to me. I spoke sweet nothings to her, conversations on sex and love broke into laughter and we all laid ourselves on the mattresses, piling up on each other, saying silly jokes about  boys and were laughing.  Sathya was fun to be with.

A few weeks later, when I visited Sahodaran again. Sathya was there. She was a different girl. She seemed to be lost in herself. She looked visibly disturbed and sad. She was on the phone arguing with her boyfriend and Oh my God!, there were bloody marks on her wrist. She told me that she had cut her wrist several times with blade.  The reason why she did this obviously was love. She wanted to prove a point to her boyfriend and this was her way. What can I say? She was an emotional girl. She was pure. She was possessive. The intensity of her love for the man she loved shocked me.

Another month had gone and I was in an event to meet Nepal’s openly gay Member of Parliament Sunil Pant who had come down to Chennai. Suddenly there was restlessness among my friends and I was wondering what was wrong. It was a news of death. The death of Sathya.  She wanted to change her sex but could not afford Sex reassignment surgery as it was very costly. She chose to undergo penectomy. She admitted herself in a reputed quack doctor’s place where more than a hundred transwomen had already done their surgeries and removed their male genitals.  Unfortunately, during anesthesia, she died of heart attack. The news of her death shocked me so much. She could have been saved only if our legal systems had been in favour of transpeople.  During the times of her death, there was so support of any kind for people who wanted to change their sex through surgery. The SRS was costing almost one lakh rupees. The government hadn’t passed a G.O to provide free SRS services and the medical support hadn’t been started by the government hospitals in Chennai then.

All Sathya could do was go to a quack doctor and do a penectomy. She was overweight but not fat. Though she was healthy, she died due to complications unknown. One of the reasons could also be that, like thousands of transwomen in India who take hormone pills and injections for breast development with out any medical check up and without any prescriptions by endocrinologist, she also took hormones.  An improper hormone regimen could also have been the cause of her heart attack.

If she had had the much needed acceptance from her family, her life might have been saved, and if she had had proper counseling and the right medicines for her transition from a friendly doctor, her life might have been saved.  She couldn’t have it and she lost her life.

.

Has the problem been solved now for people like Sathya? No. At least in Tamilnadu, the SRS is now done in government hospital in Chennai free of cost, but improper hormone regimens still exist, yes, the hormone pills and injection mess continues among transwomen. Our transcommunity will come to know the consequences and side effects of all the culpable medications only in the coming years.

Like Sathya, many girls are dying every year in India. We do not have the numbers, but we know it is happening. How will the government protect us? Does the Indian ministry of health know about this problem It is time they knew it and stepped in to protect the lives of the vulnerable transsexual people. We need gender disphoric clinics. We need psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors who have in-depth knowledge on gender and sex issues, particularly transgender issues.

If  our medical systems had been more supportive to transsexual people, if only our laws pertaining to gender and sex change had been more defined and friendly, we wouldn’t have lost a beautiful person like Sathya.

                                   

                                    Sowmiya and I were soul sisters. She was a cute, dusky beautiful girl. I first met her in a gay men’s sexual health project office called Social Welfare Association for Men (SWAM). We instantly liked each other. Her home was in the very next street to my office. The first time I saw her, she was wearing a beautiful yellow saree which had rainbow colour polka dots all over. She looked graceful. She was a school drop out who and ran away to Mumbai, lived there for a few years, did her penectomy and came back to Chennai to live with her parents. She had long jet black hair. She wore gold in her pierced nose and earlobes. She lived with her parents and was unemployed. She was into begging for her needs. At home, she would wear white shirt and white dhoti. It was due to her father’s compulsion. To him, she was still his son. She looked lovely and sexy in shirt and dhoti too. Boys in her area went mad after her. She would come to SWAM and change into sarees or tops and jeans and then go for begging with other girls.


She was 26 and in love with a guy for more than seven years. She had known him since her childhood days. He was also madly in love with her. His parents knew Sowmiya but to them she was still a ‘he’. They liked her but never liked or approved the love tangle. Once, when the love was too intense and going strong, their love heated up her boy’s family.  His mother pleaded Sowmiya to leave him. Sowmiya promised the lady that she’d never spoil her son’s life. She never did. Instead she spoilt her own.

She loved her guru and gurubhais immensely and would do anything for them. I was a sister to her. In another gharana, she would be my daughter. But in Chennai, I was the elder sister she looked up to.  We shared a true bond of sisterhood. She loved me with full heart. She was younger to me and I truly cared for her.


One fine day, Sowmiya heard the news from her boy that his family had selected a bride for him. She gulped the disappointment and shock and urged him to marry that girl. At first he didn’t want to. Her persuasion to get married worked and he got married to the girl his mother chose. ‘But you are my true love and my first wife’ he said.

He married the girl, stopped talking to Sowmiya, didn’t pick up her calls and never came back. She was heart broken. This is also the time a few betrayals among the transfamily left her in to the hollow of sadness and depression. Her chosen path to escape was also the path which was leading her to her end.

 Alcohol is the elixir of transwomen which makes them slip into pure fleeting moments of bliss. First she basked herself into it and a few months later she was whirling her life in liquor and never cared to come back. Alcohol is a celebration and our girls gather in gangs to slip into the oblivion if they were offered.

My love, my care, my persuasion and advice to change her never worked. She would charm me with her smile and giggles and say, ‘Leave me for a few months, I will come back to you’.

I went to the United States for 3 weeks. Back from the U.S, I shifted my home to the east coast border of the city. I tried to reach her and couldn’t. I was unaware that I was slowly losing her. I signed up to do the film Narthaki and was busy in front of the camera.  On the night just before my last day of shoot in Thanjavur, I got a call from my other friend Soundharya. ‘Akka, Sowmiya has hung herself. She is dead’.

 I was devastated. I cried out loud and was sobbing over the phone. I could not cancel my shoot and come to Chennai. There was only one day left more and I couldn’t waste the time and money of other people. My eyes were filled with tears and I was weeping in bed, sobbing and rolling. ‘My loveliest one! Sweetest one! When am I going to see you again? I have no courage to see your dead body’. I didn’t know what time I slept. On my last day of film shoot in Thanjavur, I worked with deep sadness. I shared the news only with my director. My friends called me to say that her postmortem was done and she was being taken to electric crematorium. She is going to be ashes.

What went wrong? How did I lose my sweet beautiful sister? What were the reasons behind the self destruction of a beautiful human being? The reasons for her death were too many in her life. Her alcoholic father, her boyfriend who betrayed her, the social system that wouldn’t care for her and do justice to her wounded life, transgender folks who never tried to look in to her weeping heart and console her, her solace the bottle which turned into an obsession. And me, with my busy life, who didn’t see her  during her last days and waited for her to change herself and come back.    

Sowmiya and Sathya, they both died young. Their deaths reflect the ignorance, the corruptness and the lack of support of our legal, social, and family systems. We, as people in their lives, ignored to give them what they needed. We could have rescued them. What blocked us? All they needed was love and care, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to console, an ear to listen to, few words to cheer them up and concern with their wellness. If we don’t do this to people around us, people who connect our lives like brothers and sisters and who need help desperately, what is love, humanity and compassion all about?

Change. That is what we need. In ourselves and in the system we live in. For transpeople, we need laws that protect us, the assurance and hope for a secure future. We need amendments to our laws which should clearly speak of equal rights of transpeople, of protection against violence and discrimination. We need permanent medical support and intervention which promise and provide quality transgender care.  

Kalki Subramaniam

Transgender rights activist/Actor/Writer

Founder, Sahodari Foundation

http://www.sahodari.org

Thinking Pains

All of the time

I see myself thinking

Thinking all inside

Dreaded thought to thought

Carefully linking

Bringing my death in shapes and size

I’m self-destructing thinking

Submerged to lose

I am sinking

Nest of serpents

My own twisted mind

Creative manner to deal in living

Grown to stern

Ripped at stern

Evil in root

I see myself thinking

All of the time.

15 year old Tesia Samara, a transsexual teenager from Rockdale, a small town in Texas wrote this poem. Tesia hung herself in the garage unable to cope with the violence and hatred in her school. This was her poem. 

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