10 Transgender People Who Are Breaking Barriers Across Fields

Transgender people have faced biases for decades from the society. They are called names, not given opportunities and are excluded from the mainstream. Many are termed as "impure" which reflects nothing but the apathy we have towards the community. Instead of respecting these people, society looks at them with pity. Nevertheless, they have risen irrespective of all the bigotry and challenges that the social structure creates in their growth, and have made a name across many domains. Here are ten transgender people who are breaking the barriers and have proven their mettle in their respective fields.

Also Read: In A First For India, Manipur Gets All Transgender Football Team

Gauri Sawant

Sawant has fought immensely for transgender rights. She fled her home at the age of 18 as she did not want to be a disappointment to her father. She stepped into activism and after years of struggle, she is currently the director of Sakshi Char Chowghi trust that runs to provide counseling and assistance to trans people and those with HIV/AIDS. She was one of the petitioners in the case that recognised transgender as the third gender. She is serving as the Goodwill Ambassador of Election Commission in Maharashtra. Gauri has an adopted daughter, Gayatri whose mother was a sex worker and died when she was just four years old. Read their story here.

Laxmi Narayan Tripathi

Assigned male at birth, Laxmi  Narayan Tripathi is one of the most influential transgender people. She is a Bharatnatyam dancer and an activist currently based in Mumbai. Unlike other parents who refuse to accept their children when they came out as a trans person, Tripathi's parents accepted her when she came out as a transgender woman. She is the first transgender person who represented Asia Pacific in the UN in 2008. She worked with several NGOs before starting her own organisation, Astitva in 2007 which caters to raising a voice for the sexual minorities. Laxmi has also featured in reality TV shows as a special guest and has never missed an opportunity to speak for the LGBTQ+ community.

Assigned male at birth, Laxmi  Narayan Tripathi is one of the most influential transgender people. She is a Bharatnatyam dancer and an activist currently based in Mumbai.

Sathyasri Sharmila

Sharmila registered as Tamil Nadu's first transgender lawyer in 2018. Finishing her law degree in 2007, she waited for over a decade before she gained the confidence to register herself as a lawyer which was solely to help her community to rise against the atrocities they have been facing for years now. She worked as a transgender activist for all these years. She is one of the very few trans people in India to be registered as a lawyer.

Shabi Giri

Working as an Indian Naval Officer, Shabi was dismissed from her job after the sex reassignment surgery that made her a transwoman. She had never felt like a man all her life and was mentally harassed when she got the transplant done She has alleged that she was kept in the psychiatric ward and the doctors tried to prove that she had some mental illness. She is still fighting the legal battle to reclaim her position.

Also Read: I told my mom I'm a woman, not a man: Meera's Journey

Dr Manabi Bandopadhyay

Manabi Bandopadhyay - India's First Transgender College Principal Resigns (Pic by The Huffington Post)

She is India's first openly transgender college principal. Born as the only son among two sisters, Manabi was oppressed by her conservative father and fought a long battle. She is West Bengal's first transgender to complete a Ph.D. and become a lecturer. She started Oh-Manab in 1995, a magazine specifically for the hijra community. She never let her education be deterred by the ridicule she faced as she knew knowledge was the weapon to fight against the stereotypes.

Born as the only son among two sisters, Manabi was oppressed by her conservative father and fought a long battle. She is West Bengal's first transgender to complete a Ph.D.

Padmini Prakash

She has scripted history by becoming the first trans woman news anchor of Lotus News, a local Tamil channel. Ostracized by her family at the age of 13 because of her identity, she was taken in by a family who were friends with her parents. She later married a guy from this very family who has supported her ever since. The two have an adopted son. Padmini has acted in various soap operas and has won a few beauty pageants as well. Other than this, she is a classically trained dancer and has taught Bharatnatyam too.

K Prithika Yashini

She is the first transwoman to become a police officer in India. Currently serving as a sub-inspector in a Tamil Nadu district, the fight for becoming an officer was not easy as her application was rejected because of her gender. However, K Prithika Yashini challenged the rejection and fought a legal battle in the Madras High Court. She subsequently cleared the required tests and was given the job she was entitled to. Prithika had to run away from her house as she was tired of her parents who had sought medical, astrological and religious help to "set things right".

Also Read: Sexuality Is Not Limited To Sex, Says Transgender Activist Amrita Sarkar

Joyita Mondal

Transgender activist Joyita Mondal

In 2017, Mondal became the country's first transgender person to be appointed as a judge in a Lok Adalat. She always raises a voice for people of her community and has been appealing to the government for reservation for trans community people in jobs. She dropped out of school and ran away to Siliguri from Kolkata, her hometown. She had to sleep at bus stands and beg on the roads for food. After living on the streets, she landed in Islampur where she worked for the upliftment of the transgender community. She now runs her own organisation, ‘Dinajpur Notun Alo’ (Dinajpur new light) that works for the welfare of people from the community. Read more about her here.

In 2017, Mondal became the country's first transgender person to be appointed as a judge in a Lok Adalat.

Nitasha Biswas

Biswas is the winner of the country's first-ever trans beauty pageant. She was abandoned by her family but this did not hamper her from pursuing her dreams. She started a career in modelling. She had no one by her side while she went through the Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), which is mentally as well as physically straining. She then went on to work as a stylist and makeup artist. She won the pageant in 2017 and then represented India in Miss International Queen and Miss Trans Australia 2019.

Also Read: India’s First University For Transgender People Coming To UP

Shabnam Bano

Known as Shabnam Mausi, she is the first transgender Indian to be elected to the public office. Despite attending primary school for just two years, she knows twelve languages through her frequent travels around the country. She has inspired her community to challenge the roles they have been performing for years by walking into politics. As the first trans MLA of India, she has been focussing on eradicating corruption, poverty, hunger and unemployment from her constituency.

Saavriti is an intern at SheThePeople.TV. The veiws expressed are the author's own.