Choosing to be a woman

Kalki Subramanian will come as something of a shock to all those who get their idea of the transgender community from the hijras they see at traffic junctions. In Delhi recently for the launch of Songs of The Caravan, an album of songs sung by transgenders from all across India, Kalki is dressed in a rich red anarkali suit, tastefully made-up and accessorised in gold heels and clutch. The Chennai-based transgender and activist takes the lead in inviting chief guests, Brinda Karat and Swami Agnivesh, to the dais, and introducing them to the audience. She also seems tech-savvy; she carries a tablet which she zips out to play a short film on the album and the songs.

Kalki holds two post-graduate degrees, one in mass communications and the other in international relations. Her bio, which she's remembered to get printouts of to give out to the media, proudly mentions that she was "the first transsexual foreign national" to be invited by the US government to attend a human rights activism and awareness programme. In interviews to the media, Kalki has spoken about how she paid for her laser hair removal and sex reassignment surgery with the money she earned from her job as media specialist in an MNC.

Kalki's impressive CV and polished appearance may be an exception among transgenders in India, where a majority of the community lives a completely marginalised existence - driven out of family, society, school, jobs. But it is also a testimony to the power of education.

Kalki was born in Pollachi, a small town in Tamil Nadu; a son born after two daughters in a family that was relatively well-off thanks to his father's transport business. Kalki remembers that he always wanted to be a girl, took up female roles in games and bought a red lipstick when he was 10. His parents sent him off to an all-boys school when he was older. It was the place where Kalki would be teased by classmates and teachers for being effeminate. That's when he met his "mother", a senior transgender who was head of a Thirunangai, or transgender family.
Having found a support structure among people who shared his identity, Kalki did not give up on education - completing his BA in English and then his two MAs. It also helped, Kalki says, that his mother was somewhat supportive. "My mother did not oppose my going in for gender surgery. She wanted me to be happy and was afraid that society would destroy me. So she made me promise to be dignified always."

This is also what gave him the self-assertion to set up Sahodari, an organisation that propagates transgender rights, protests discrimination of transgenders, helps them find jobs and acquire government documents, advises them on health, including where to go for gender surgery.

Tamil Nadu, thanks to the efforts of Kalki and other transgender activists, has instituted path-breaking inclusive policies for transgenders - the state has made gender surgery free for transgenders since 2008, it has a "third gender" category in official documents, transgenders have got government jobs in the state, and seats in higher education institutions. "But we still have a long way to go," says Kalki.

Kalki, meanwhile, is doing all she can to break barriers. In 2011, she starred in Narthaki, a commercial film that dramatised, with the help of song and dance, the struggles of a transgender artist. She even got 25 transgender members of Sahodari to act alongside her in the film. She's also set up the Liberation Performing Arts Troupe of underprivileged transgender women. "My dream is to set up a rock band of transgender women."

Kalki has just signed up to direct a film to be produced by Eventaa South India Production. She is also a published author - her collection of poems, titled Phallus, I Cut, came out in January this year. She's already at work on two other books to come out later in the year - a semi-autobiographical work in Tamil and another in English that will seek to inspire youth with lessons from the lives of transgenders. "There're many lessons we can teach about an organised way of life, faith in oneself, determination, being creative, and the importance of enjoying life,' she says.
However, Kalki says she is thankful that she wasn't born a woman - that she chose to become one. "I look around and see how women, especially women from small towns are subordinate to men. My life, if I were born a woman, would have been dramatically boring."