For the longest time, he had been Rupesh Reddy, a fashion designer and a gay rights activist from Chennai. Suddenly, in December 2014, a new profile picture appeared on his Facebook account. It was that of a woman. The user name too had changed. This too was that of a woman. The profile picture, bold and defiant in the face of the world had an equally defiant accompanying statement – New Life Begins Here!
Meet Sasha Reddy, a recently turned transgender from Chennai, a designer at Versatile. As a person with alternate sexual preferences living in a conservative society like India, and even more, Chennai, Sasha is quite open about her choices and urges and qualifies perfectly for our profile of a ‘Do Bossy’ woman.
“I decided to take the plunge six months ago,” she said. “It was something that had been coming for quite some time now. But the journey of coming into that moment was extremely stressful, and painful.”
Like most other transgenders, Sasha felt uncomfortable in her body all her life. “I was a woman trapped in a man’s body,” she said. “As a child, I loved dressing up in women’s clothes. In fact, I was the only boy in an all boys’ school to learn classical dance and happily don the costume and grease paint for school performances. I was always effeminate, but I scored well in school and was also the school rep, so I wasn’t picked on too much for being so.”
The transition to deciding for a sex change procedure was long and confusing for Sasha. For a long time, she lived as a gay man with a live-in-boyfriend of seven years. They were open about their relationship and their sexual preferences to the society in general and the media too. They had even convinced their families and friends also had come out in support of them. They were exactly what every closet gay couple aspired to be. Open. Free.
“But it started to get to me after a point, this whole being-somebody-that-I-wasn’t thing,” she said. “I started feeling trapped, suicidal at times and thoroughly stressed out. I wanted to change my identity, but I didn’t want to hurt my boyfriend. He is a well-known activist in Chennai. Even if he did accept me, people are scared of transgenders. I was worried that everything would change. I tried explaining it to him, but he just couldn’t get why I wanted to change my sex. In desperation, I started dressing up as a woman in front of him. He felt disgusted. That look continues to haunt me.”
Direction came for Sasha from another friend who had decided to go the same way. “I met him at a party and he was all happy, eyes shining as he told me that he has decided to change his sex,” she said. “We talked all night, about issues, procedure to change sex, money to be saved, whom to approach. In the end, I was a little more clear. My boyfriend and I broke up and I began the treatment. In fact, this friend and I, both started our treatments within a month of each other.”
Both Sasha and her friend moved in together, sought counselling and agreed to be each other’s support system. “With all the hormonal doses, it’s a very conflicting time. It’s imperative that we keep our spirits up. My family was wonderful about this. I need never have worried. They supported me in this too. I was extremely overwhelmed when my mother sent me five saris this year for Sankranti. She always buys something for me for the festival, but this year, she gave me these saris because I don’t have any yet in my wardrobe. It was difficult to drape a sari, but I enjoyed wearing it.”
Sasha soon plans to apply for a change in name, a transgender identity card and a change in sex status in her passport. Her troubles are far from over though. “My work as a designer hasn’t suffered. Orders still come in. But there are other kinds of trouble associated with being a transgender,” she said. “It has become very difficult to find rental accommodation in good neighbourhoods. People see transgenders as sex workers mostly, so there have been a couple of unpleasant encounters in public places. But even the kind of support I am getting from my friends and family is so much more than what others like me have. If all goes well, I hope to have a family someday – a husband and adopt a child perhaps.”
She has mended fences with her ex-boyfriend now and they remain good friends. “The only thing is I have lost the support of many friends from the gay community,” she said. “Their refusal to accept is ironic given that we are in similar boats. There are other small pleasures though. I used to frequent many nightclubs and I was worried that post transformation they wouldn’t let me in. But I went there recently, for the first time after transformation; I was dressed as a woman, in short skirts and stilettos. The bouncer just checked my coupon and let me in along with all the other women. I felt so proud!”
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