"The time I came to the Hijra community, leaving my high-class society, suddenly I had no friends."
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is a popular Indian transgender and hijra community activist. Being an exceptionally good Bharatanatyam dancer, a Bollywood actress and a powerful, motivational speaker can also be added to her achievements. Laxmi was born on 13 December 1978 in Thane, Maharashtra and was assigned male gender at birth. Her family was a conservative brahman family and belonged to the high-class society of Mumbai. Laxmi was a privileged child. She has a postgraduate degree in Bharatnatyam. Growing up Laxmi faced a lot of bullying and name-calling during her school as well as college life. In an interview, she mentions how she was scared to go to the common washrooms as well as to the restrooms in fear of getting molested or bullied due to the lack of separate public accommodations for the third gender people. This fear of her is the result of a traumatized incident that Laxmi went through at the mere age of six when she was sexually assaulted by one of her extended family members as she was a very feminine child. This incident had a great impact on her life. She was a shy child but never did she compromise in expressing herself. Often, she was mocked at and ridiculed but she found strength in her parents, especially her mother. She was not abandoned by her parents for her sexual identity and showed her only the bright side of her identity. With a strong will to live her life on her terms, Laxmi became a bar dancer and was highly popular. But this was short-lived as bars got banned in Maharashtra. Laxmi protested against this decision of the state.
Laxmi identifies herself as a woman in the hijra community and is a staunch follower of Hinduism. She usually speaks about the position of the hijras in the Ancient Hindu society as being that of the most revered and inclusive and also highlights how the British colonizers brought with them homophobia, making the community invisible.
Her journey to the hijra community was not a one-night thing. There is a stark contrast between transgenders and gays but they are often considered the same thing. In her initial life, Laxmi thought that she belongs to the gay community but on a chance encounter with Shabira, the first PhD trans student in India, opened her eyes to the often forgotten world of the hijra community. She soon realized that she belonged to this part of the lgbtqi+ spectrum. Bidding goodbye to her high-class society, Laxmi lost all her friends because of her choice. She realized that the hijra community has been treated unfairly and has been kept out of mainstream Indian society.
Another realization struck her when she visited the red-light area of Mumbai, Maharashtra in 2000 and saw the unbearable, atrocious conditions of the hijras in India. People of her community were selling their bodies to earn a mere amount of 20-30 rupees for a living. The main reason she gives for this condition of them is due to their abandonment by their parents and not enough government policies to help in the upliftment of the community. At that time, India was facing a crisis of AIDS. Laxmi was one of the voices at that time to demand a separate category for the hijra community in the national anti-AIDS program. Hence, she started participating actively in various NGOs and organizations to uplift, empower and give rights to the hijra community of India. She became the president of the NGP DAI Welfare Society which was the first registered and working organization for eunuchs in South Asia. In 2007, she started her organization called Astitva. This organization works to promote the welfare, development and support of sexual minorities. Soon, Laxmi left for Toronto, Canada for the Asia Pacific sex workers network and became the first transgender to represent it in the United Nations and spoke about the plights of sexual minorities in the world, especially India. Moreover, her passport was unique in the way that it stated that she is a female, a transgender and a eunuch.
In 2014, after a plethora of efforts and petitions by Laxmi, Supreme Court finally ordered the recognition of a ‘third gender’. This became the hope for the transgenders and hijra community to finally start getting government jobs and benefits as well as more inclusivity and access to education in society. This decision also paved way for the judgement of decriminalizing ‘same-sex’ relationships in India in 2018(Article 377).
Laxmi formed a Hindu hijra religious order, the Kinnar Akhara in 2018 which exhorts discussion on LGBTQI+ topics and Hinduism. She also has spoken about the issues related to this ancient community on many platforms and is a person who implores her fellow beings to love themselves no matter what. According to her, the community can thrive more if the members educate themselves with the help of various government schemes and NGO initiatives.
Laxmi participated in a reality show, Bigg Boss and was also featured in the 2005 documentary, “Between the Lines: India’s Third Gender.” In 2017 at the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, Laxmi received the Rainbow Warrior Award and also received the Sree Narayana Guru Award for social service the same year.
She became a voice for the transgender community that was declared outcast and there was a lack of representation for almost 311 years and counting; Laxmi truly gave strength and courage to others. Her life was not easy but one will always find her in a beautiful saree with gleaming pieces of jewellery and a beautiful smile on her face. This is Laxmi who is not only living her life with dignity but also promoting others of her community to do that.
I would like to end this article with a very simple yet important question that Laxmi included in one of her speeches:
"How many of you have thrown your friends if they are a little bit different?"
Books by Laxmi Tripathi:
Me Hijra, Me Laxmi; 2015
Red Lipstick: The Men in my life (co-author Pooja Pandey); 2016
Sources:
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/2186002/meet-laxmi-narayan-tripathi-transgender-indian-demigod-bringing
https://www.guernicamag.com/indias-third-gender/
https://www.sapiens.org/body/hijra-india-third-gender/
https://scroll.in/article/814182/why-i-chose-to-become-a-hijra-laxmi-in-her-own-words
http://mumbaiqueerfest.com/2017/05/kashish-2017-honours-laxmi-narayan-tripathi-manavendra-singh-gohil-rainbow-warriors/
About the Author:
Pratishtha Singh Gaur loves voicing her opinion about gender disparity and social taboos. She is always open to conversations regarding songs, books, movies, and cats. In social gatherings, her role is mostly keeping the mood light.