“As far as my memory goes, I was always a girl. I played with my mother’s clothes, instead of my father’s. I loved my dolls more than any bat and ball. It took me a while to realize that people around me never saw me the way I saw myself.

I went to an all boys school and a kid like me is usually feminine, delicate. There is always this bunch of boys, on whose radar if you came, you’d be picked on, because it was easy. I still remember, I was waiting for my auto to pick me up from school, when these bunch of boys spotted me and chased me through the corridors, into an open ground. They told me that I was a girl and hit me, opened the buttons of my shirt to ‘prove’ it. When a boy asks you to come sit with him in the backbench, you know what that means. And for you, he is the only man who sees you as a woman, that you feel obliged to do it. This went on till 7th grade, until I realized that I was being violated. Rage consumed me, but I couldn’t do much then. For a person like me, suicide was an everyday thought. I have considered taking my life on multiple occasions but in my faith, it is considered a cardinal sin. I couldn’t take away that power from my creator, and that was the only thing that stopped me. One day, a few years down the line, while I was taking a class, I felt a sudden pain. I remember waking up on the bathroom floor because I had passed out due to the ache. I gathered myself and went to the hospital. After multiple tests, they told me it was stage 3 cancer and that I had around 8 months left. Cancer, to me, was good news. I was happy that at least this way, my misery will be put to an end. I was confident that this is it. After ongoing chemo treatments and pain, they declared me cancer free. It was as if God was telling me, ‘You have suffered enough. This is your chance to live your life, again. But this time, the way you want to.’ I started my research on transition from then on. I came out to my parents, and although they were supportive of the LGBT community, they didn’t want their kid to be that way. They told me, ‘We already lost you once before and this time, we feel like we are losing you all over again’. I guess we both lost something that day. Even till today, I call them everyday at 10:30 P.M. to check in on them.

For a while, I thought I was gay. Although during my sexual experiences, something always felt wrong. Gender identity is who you go to bed as. Whereas, sexual orientation is who to go to bed with. I realized that the issue was with, who I was going to bed as. Society calls me a transwoman. But to me, the minute you add a prefix to anything, you differentiate it, exclude it. To me, all I am is a woman, nothing more, nothing less.”

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