Supreme Court has accepted the “Transgender” as third gender, after which the Hijra community is surviving respectfully.
Today I have an interesting story to share with you all, which is about Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi.
I hope we all are aware of the personality, as most of the people have seen her in Big Boss season 5. Well, there is much to know about her. We all know that she belongs to Hijra community, but she is never afraid of it. Ever in history, she was the first transgender who represented Asia Pacific in the UN in 2008, where she opened about the plight of sexual minorities in assembly.
Lakshmi was born in 1979, in Thane, Mumbai and belongs to an orthodox Brahmin family. She is known to be a transgender rights activist, also she has been into many Hindi films as an actress and is a famous Bharatanatyam dancer in Mumbai.
She has completed her schooling from Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School, after which she acquired her arts degree from Mithibai College, Mumbai and postgraduate degree in Bharatnatyam. She also starred in Ken Ghosh’s dance videos which was a right step to become a dance choreographer on her own. Before she became a bar dancer, she met Shabira, the first PhD Hijra student who was an active member of Hijra community. Being a bar dancer, she has got many admirers across the city for her beauty and dance. She became a social activist when the minister RR Patil released an order to close all dance bars in city.
Lakshmi has also served for several NGOs which conduct LGBT (an initiative for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) social activity. She became president of the NGO DAI Welfare Society in South Asia, in year 2002, which is the first working organization for eunuchs. She footed her own organization, Astitva, in 2007, which works in the support of sexual minorities and in the direction of their growth and development.
The time she left for Toronto, Canada representing Asia Pacific, her passport presented her as a female, transgender and eunuch. She has gone through a very abusive life. During her schooling, children used to tease and laugh at her when she was not in age to understand why people are misbehaving. In college days, she used to wear lipsticks due to which her teacher always scolded her and kept her out of the class. Being a member of an orthodox Brahmin family her relatives used to call her a “Kalank”.
She wrote her auto-biography, Red Lipstick, in which she mentioned that she has gone through the breast augmentation but did not receive any hormone therapy.
