PM didn’t support transwomen’s rights, he disappointed us, says Shanavi

“I was disappointed by the Prime Minister-Prime Minister's Office of this country. I had written to him with a lot of hope and the reply from his office was very heart breaking. I want to live with dignity, I have tried four times to get a job in Air India since 2016, but being a transgender woman seem to be my biggest crime. Are we criminals, why should we always carry this stamp of being a transgender on our forehead?” twenty-seven year-old Shanavi Ponnasami’s shares her anguish.

Brought up in Tiruchendur region near Chennai, Shanavi doesn’t want to utter a single word about her childhood and past. She says that it was a horrible phase of her life when she was struggling with the imperfections of her body and the society as well. Then she pledged to prove herself. She completed engineering, took up a job, modelling assignments and went through a surgery to become a woman.

Now, she is a woman and wants to live with dignity and respect. She always dreamt of being a pilot since childhood, but could not fulfil it. Therefore, she thought of joining the crew of Air India. She saw an Air India job advertisement in the year 2016 and has been struggling to get employment there since.

When asked as to why did she try to get a job at a public airline, and not in a private one, she replied, “We have to talk about our rights with the government first. There is a provision of reservation for Dalits and backward castes there. I also thought that I would find a place, at least amid all the closed doors. But I was very disappointed.”

Shanavi said that, when in August 2017, she was rejected four times by Air India, she wrote to the Prime Minister of India urging him to help her in this regard. In this letter, she requested that the trans-woman be given a job at Air India.

In response, the PMO wrote that there was no category of transwoman, so, nothing could be done. After that, she went to the Supreme Court in September 2017 with her appeal and on November 11, the apex court demanded a reply within three weeks but nothing happened. Finally, fed up with all this, she wrote to the President in February 2018, and asked for the permission to die.

Shanavi said, “I was completely shattered and felt I can’t continue like that. But I want to fight now. I am still fighting.” She is in Delhi for a hearing in the Supreme Court and the Court has asked her to file a fresh petition on gender discrimination. The reason is that Air India argued in the court that Shanavi had four marks less than the marks required for a woman candidate to be selected.

Shanavi says that a woman and a transwoman couldn’t be evaluated on the same parameter, more so because the selection in this category is primarily based on looks and not on personality.

Shanavi wants to continue this fight. She wants dignity and equality while maintaining her individual personality. And what makes her special is that she is concerned not only about her interests, but also the interests of her community.

Watch Shanavi talking about her woes, her struggle and the zeal to fight:

(Translated into English by Pragati Saxena).