An Artist's Diary On Documenting Lives Of Transgender Persons

A Shift in Perspective

The documentation of the troubled lives and struggles of transgender people in the past have only generated fleeting sympathy. Society at large would view them as kidnappers, beggars and people who lure you to sex work. Now, the challenges are similar, yet, there are movies and media showing members of the transgender community in a respectful manner, which allows society to relate to them at a more human level. This shift in how the community is viewed could be due to the recent laws that were passed, rules within the corporate and other sectors for practising diversity and inclusion, and progressive movies that represent the LGBTQIA+ community and advertisement. The Vicks advertisement was a game changer. With Gauri Sawant in the forefront, it depicted a genuine part of their life which touched many hearts. It had nothing to do with explaining that they are transgender or showing their struggles and creating sympathy. Instead, it focused on a very human side of Sawant.

The Need for Collaboration

All creative fields should collaborate with people from the community and dive deep into their culture and traditional practices, examine their spaces of innovation, their history and create new spaces by transforming this knowledge into art. By bringing the nuances of trans lives, narratives and lived experiences to the forefront of their fight, we could aim to embrace the people from the transgender community by creating consciousness and awareness. At Aravani Art Project, in order to continue our work and impact people from the smaller towns and cities, we will need to come up with more stronger plans and approaches with regards to budget and sustaining the impact created by partnering with other gender-based organisations who can emphasise the experiences and give varied perspectives. We hope to include healthcare in our agenda, especially in the rural and small-town sectors. We also want to use some of our funds to train more people from the community in the arts. In five years, we plan to have a training institute for the arts.

Our work and impact within the transgender and sex worker community is always going to be a work in progress. The transgender community is a thriving pool of beautiful and talented human beings but are almost never viewed that way.

There are many opportunities now within the entertainment world, however, famous actors portraying transgender characters have not been appreciated. Cis men playing the role of transgender women is problematic. The paradox of representing a transgender person with a cis male body feels a little too deceiving.

As for the visual arts, there is often superficial support and tokenism. While at Aravani we strive to include transgender people from a lower economic background, the everyday challenges of navigating the art world are several. It has taken us a year to instil leadership qualities or roles within the organisation because of the high demand or respect for people who only know English. The privileged assume that the underprivileged are less creative than them. The syndrome of being this person on a pedestal, who thinks they are ‘helping’ needs to stop. We can enable, support, train and collaborate with members of the transgender community and hope people become aware of the narrative they are using while working with the community. Language and representation also play an important role in shaping and influencing the younger generation.

Creating Opportunities

The recent OTT series Made in Heaven starring Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju from the transgender community is a genuine depiction of someone enjoying their profession, surrounded by people who have accepted her for who she is. The flipside of it was also shown in a way that did not demean the community. Can the creative industry be more aware and informed about the community before collaborating or working along with them? Who else can tell a better story about a community of people than themselves? Can we create an opportunity or space for people from the transgender community who are interested in the arts to be trained by people from the industry? Only time will tell.

Poornima Sukumar is the Founder & Creative Director of Aravani Art Project, a transwomen- and cis-women-led art collective

(This appeared in the print as 'Artist's Diary')