Transgenders : ‘Caricaturing on screen have enforced stereotypes’

New Delhi: Taksh, a 22-year-old transwoman model, sports flowing blonde hair and walks the ramp with ease, but every time she sashays down the runway, a niggling thought crosses her mind: how will the media perceive and portray her? Her journey from a male to female has been painful and challenging, and after assuming her "feminine self", Taksh wants to become the voice for many transgenders like her, who either suffer in silence or end up begging at traffic intersections after being ostracised by the society.

"I was never a boy. My femininity was locked up inside a male body.

But, now I am out of that masculine cage that imprisoned my soul. Society should accept us as we are. We are not pretending to be someone else or exhibiting aberrant behaviour. We just want to embrace our true self," she said.

Taksh says she "went through hell" during school and college days as many classmates bullied her while people in society ridiculed "my feminine behaviours and asked me to correct myself".

"Many of these people used to liken me with some stereotyped characters in Bollywood movie or TV show. Film industry in India has been rather unfair to us.

They have not really helped our cause but instead enforced stereotypes through caricatured gay characters on screen," she rued. Thankfully for Taksh, her parents understood her psyche and stood by their child through the difficult period.

"A son was born in our home and now we have a fully-grown daughter. And, I am a proud father of my daughter. Society and media instead of ridiculing transgenders, should show some sensitivity and try to understand them, as they are in need of help," said father Sanjay Sharma, a retired Air Force officer.

But not everyone is fortunate to have such supportive parents and are rejected by society as "misfits".

"Some even commit suicide while many other we see begging in the streets," said Dr Richie Gupta, who conducted Taksh's gender reassignment surgery in February.

"Bollywood films have enforced stereotypes through caricatured gay and transgender characters, and that promotes the environment of discrimination. But, I feel, slowly that portrayal is going down. In Hollywood, at least, films like 'Transamerica' have been made, which sensitively portray their life, and I often quote this film in my presentations," he said.

Gupta, director of department of plastic, cosmetic and reconstructive surgery at Fortis Hospital in Shalimar Bagh in Delhi, said transgenders face discrimination, even when they come for an appointment or surgery from fellow patients.

"When they sit in the waiting area, other patients either stare at them or mock them. Film and news media should help remove misconceptions about transgenders through sensitive reporting so that people don't treat them as an aberration," he told PTI.

Kritika, another 22-year-old transwoman, who underwent a gender reassignment surgery last October, said, media often equates transgenders with eunuchs which is incorrect.

"Transgenders could be a male/female whose mind (gender) is at conflict with the physical body and sex as assigned at birth (gender dysphoria).