Q for queer rights: Transgender group starts YouTube channel to fight discrimination
YouTube can be a treasure trove of misinformation, believes the group of transgenders trying to challenge the misconceptions being perpetrated.
Question the vernacular web about how transpersons are born and the answers range from pointing fingers at differences in parents' blood types to outlandish beliefs about ill-fated mating times. YouTube channels can be a treasure trove of misinformation, rues Rachana Mudraboyina.
The Hyderabad-based transactivist was shocked to find that these videos, mostly in Hindi, had millions of viewers. "So we decided the online video platform is the best way to challenge these misconceptions... use it to provide accurate, scientific information about transgender people," says Mudraboyina. Since English speakers have access to a wider knowledge base, it's the vernacular audience she is targeting through the upcoming channel TransVision.
Mudraboyina has already scripted eight episodes that she aims to shoot in Telugu, Kannada and Daccani Urdu with anchors Anjali Kalyanapu, Janhavi Rai and Sonia Sheikh, respectively. Two short-format episodes of Kalyanapu's 'Aa..aa..ee.. ee Anjali' have been uploaded. As the name implies, the show tackles the very basics including the language to be used when talking to a transperson. Though teasers for the other two shows have been shared, production costs have stalled them for the moment. "Each episode costs us about Rs 12,000-14,000. We can't afford to self-fund and we're now relying on our Wishberry campaign drawing in enough support," reveals the activist-turned-writer/ director.
Hyderabad, where Mudraboyina is based, is a hotbed of violence against the trans and LGBTQ community. "Every day, we see crimes against transpeople. Sex workers are especially vulnerable and are targeted by police as well," says Mudraboyina who, as a founding member of the Telangana Transgender Hijra Samiti, has been deeply involved in fighting for the rights of these victims.
Sheikh, who will host the show in Urdu, is herself an acid attack survivor. Her show will get an extra ninth episode, dedicated to her story. After a two-year-long legal battle, the high court ordered the government to give her a compensation of Rs 3 lakh. Sheikh is now waiting for the money to come through to pay for the plastic surgery. She hopes to return to being a dancer soon, something she pursued passionately before she was attacked.
Discrimination against the trans community continues to be rife and employment is difficult to come by. Kalyanapu was forced to quit her front office management job because of the bigotry, while Bengaluru-based Rai went from jockeying at a community radio station to volunteering at an NGO. Despite their graduate degrees, both have to now resort to begging to make ends meet. When the two met Mudraboyina at a conference in Tirupati, they decided it was time to work together.
"Our main aim is to change the perception about transpeople. We hope to shake up this internalised stigma and the way people respond to us," says Mudraboyina. Apart from providing accurate scientific information and guidelines on the dos and don'ts of dealing with transpeople, TransVision's first series will also discuss the community in a historical, socio-cultural and anthropological context. "One episode looks into transgender celebrities across the world and the country, while another talks exclusively about the Kuvugam festival. There's also one that deals with court judgments and government policies in India and around the world," reveals Mudraboyina, who has also written the show's title track, a Telugu song titled Unknown Pain of Transgenders. The first episodes in Kannada and Urdu are slated to air in the first week of September. The writer's plans for a second series involve a show dedicated to the violence against the LGBTQ community.