Namitha Marimuthu

 

I was born as an only son to an influential, traditional Chettiyar family based in Chennai with a homemaker mother and a father who was into car business. 

Yet, even as a 10-year old, I longed for feminity, whether it was buying lipstick with pocket money or dressing up as feminine characters in mock dramas. I was a good learner and a class topper in school with Math being my favorite subject. Yet all I wanted was to be perceived by the world as a physically and mentally strong superwoman.

When I turned 13, my mother discovered my feelings of feminity, which upset her deeply and she began to watch and care more for me.  I enrolled in St Peter’s University for higher education and even though I had many close friends in college, I had abusive classmates and teachers who mocked my effeminate character. To escape the humiliation, I would bunk classes and escape to Marina beach, where I met Malaika, a transsexual woman. Through her, I was introduced to the world of transgenders.   

My family and relatives who got wind of this were furious. They put me in a mental asylum hoping to “normalize” me. I was left with nowhere to go as the trans community was scared to accept me due to my powerful biological family. In fact my family set 60 goons after me who forcibly dragged and put me in a mental asylum for the third time. I managed to escape after 6 months, by digging my way through a window opening, walking 120kms to reach my grandparent’s house, and threatening to commit suicide if I was ever locked up again.

I went back home saying I would be a proper son, but my feminine side never gave me a chance to live like a man and I escaped again when my parents started to fix my marriage. I filed a court case against my parents and moved to Bangalore for the sex-change surgery.  It's around this time that I met my transgender mother Sudha, who stood by me during & after the surgery. She also put in a lot of effort to acquaint my family with all the trauma & conflicts I had faced as a child and finally succeeded in getting them to accept me the way I was. Around this time, I also won the case in court. 

There has been no looking back ever since...from playing extras to enacting character roles in Tamil movies to representing our country in international pageants, I have done it all. I also guide and take care of  40 trans women to ensure they get educated and work in good places. But irrespective of all my achievements, the lives of transgenders continue to be a painful struggle for survival. When I started living in a rented place, I was humiliated by neighbours and had to shift often. Seeing my plight, my parents bought me an apartment of my own, even though relatives had confiscated all their property to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of a transgender woman.  

India is a democracy they say; yet people from my community have to not only beg for respect but also fight all their lives just to be treated as equal human beings on par with others. It's only when each Indian is able to live life on his /her own terms, can we be called a country that truly celebrates freedom.