Mocking members of the transgender community, depicting them only as victims or villains, or using them as offensive humour – has for long been the narrative of TV shows and movies that attempt to be inclusive of the LGBTQIA+ community. While the recent influx of LGBTQIA+ centric movies is certainly commendable, casting directors continue to rely on cis-gender actors to portray transgender persons. In a country where most people including our lawmakers and their advisors barely know who a trans person is, a cis man playing a trans woman (or vice-a-versa) only adds to the plethora of misconceptions about the community.
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India’s film industry – comprising Bollywood and the regional film industry – amasses an audience totalling to 1.2 billion people, according to Eros International. Even as cinema has been considered as a powerful medium known to influence and dictate opinions on several social issues like gender discrimination, domestic violence, divorce etc, these 1.2 billion people often watch cis-gender actors playing the role of transgender persons. Will such representation further isolate the trans community, who face discrimination and violence almost every day, in private and in public?
Representation in the public sphere precedes representation on the big screen. Several states in the country have taken steps towards opening doors of opportunities for transgender persons. For example, Kerala was the first state to bring out a policy for transgender persons in 2009. Karnataka was the first state to provide 1% reservation for the community in public employment. But have these bills and policies enabled visibility of the transgender community in the country?
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Some states have also designated queer spaces – which are identified as safe spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community. These places of social gathering, entertainment, and even community housing are blossoming in cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru. However, in the limited public spaces that Indians have access to, there’s very little that is truly inclusive. Almost as little as a cafe.
The recently-released OTT series ‘Taali’, featuring Sushmita Sen in a career-defining role as she tells the story of a transgender community activist Gauri Sawant, has received mixed responses, as it attempts to place a trans person in the centre of the narrative but yet again, casts a cis-actor to play a transwoman. In the backdrop of this debate, Outlook’s latest issue looks at the questions surrounding representation of transgender persons in various forms of art, media and the public sphere.
