Meet Trinetra: A trans doctor from Karnataka

Brut India

Not just a doctor, Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju is now an actor too... taking on one role at a time to change trans representation in mainstream shows.

Transcript

00:00But we don't live in an ideal world.

00:22As I transitioned in medical school, as I came out to people, and as I realized, you

00:38know, how healthcare works for the transgender community in India, I realized that there

00:42is such a gaping hole.

00:45We really don't get the healthcare that we deserve, be it with gender affirming surgery,

00:49gender affirming therapy of any kind, including psychological counseling, including dermatological

00:56services, you know, and including a lot more specialized sort of healthcare.

01:01We don't get even the bare minimum.

01:04I realized that I would like to help and ensure that that, you know, lacuna is filled.

01:15When did you realize that you were heterosexual or when did you realize that you were cisgender

01:19or not transgender, that the best thing that we can do is ask society instead, that when

01:25did you know that it was okay to make a child feel like they were a circus animal, instead

01:30of asking us, when did you know you were different?

01:33We should be asking people around, we should be asking teachers and parents, and when did

01:39you know it was okay to treat a child like they were so different.

01:47When I was about three or four years old, I was very comfortable calling myself a girl.

01:53I was very comfortable experimenting with stereotypically feminine gender roles.

01:58My mom would dress me up in her jewelry, in her makeup, and I loved it.

02:06I think everybody around me realized that I was in fact more comfortable, you know,

02:12identifying and expressing myself as a girl.

02:17And that was a social emergency, you know, that people were like, okay, what do we do

02:21about this now?

02:24And that's when I started getting teased, bullied for it.

02:29You know, this neighbor would come and tell me that I should not be this shame to my family

02:34and to my parents.

02:36So it wasn't some intrinsic visceral epiphany that we have that, okay, you know, we are

02:41not like everybody else.

02:42It is when people come to us and discriminate against us that we realize that we don't belong.

02:52When I was about 10 years old, I saw a psychiatrist who was not trained to handle this because

02:58my parents had taken me to her actually.

03:01And she told me that something was wrong with me because I was not spending enough time

03:07with a masculine influence in my life.

03:09I was behaving in a very feminine way.

03:12So it was quite disheartening to hear that from a doctor.

03:17And even from the best of doctors, you hear similar things.

03:20So I would really like to change that for, you know, the generations to come.

03:25I want no transgender person to go through that ever.

03:43I was assigned male at birth, but my gender identity was always female.

03:49I always identified as a girl.

03:52So you know, that mismatch between assigned gender and identified gender can be called

03:56gender incongruence.

03:58And that gender incongruence gives a lot of discomfort to a lot of people, physical, emotional,

04:04psychological, and for many others, the discomfort is not very severe.

04:08So depending on how severe the discomfort is, you know, there are a variety of options

04:14that a transgender person has in order to feel comfortable with their identity.

04:19And that may include legal changes, social changes, medical and surgical changes, or

04:24sometimes next to no changes at all.

04:27It really depends from person to person.

04:29Because I was an easy target for them, because I was very different from all of the other

04:43boys, right?

04:44It was so easy for them to pick on me, to beat me up, to sexually harass, to molest,

04:50and basically do whatever they wanted.

04:53And there were people in school, there were teachers in school that played along and just

04:58pretended like nothing was happening.

05:00There were people in the apartment complex, it was just happening from every direction.

05:05There were teachers who would throw me out of class for dressing a certain way.

05:08There were friends that thought I was just asking for attention.

05:12And there were a lot of trolls online, you know, so there was a lot of bullying and harassment

05:17that came my way.

05:19Because I was different.

05:28It took a long time to sort of make my peace with the fact that if I were to come out of

05:33the closet, if I were to live my life in an authentic kind of way, then there will always

05:39be people who will say things.

05:41And I have to sort of be strong there and, you know, empower both myself and the entire

05:48community.

05:49Once you get to a certain point in your life, when you are completely sure of who you are,

05:54where you will not take nonsense from people, people really are intimidated by that, you

06:01know, and I enjoy that.

06:04I really enjoy that people are now scared to say things because I do experience that.

06:09Because of my social media following, because of who I've become and who I am becoming,

06:15people do think twice before they say something or before they do something.

06:20That's a huge step forward in my life.

06:24You have called me a lot of names, you know, my entire life, but this day forward you will

06:28call me doctor.

06:30And that is the day that I kept working towards and I'm so glad that it's finally happened.

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