Breaking myths through TransVision

Acceptance, visibility and to live life like any other human being; for years transgender individuals have struggled for these things. Many people are still not aware of what exactly a transgender is. They wonder, if it is ‘a mental illness’ or ‘a psychiatric disorder’.

Hyderabad-based activist and a transwoman herself, Rachana Mudraboyina says, “Nobody can blame them. As a kid, even I thought there are only two genders- male and female. Our society has forced us to think in that manner.

People, like me, know that we aren’t what we probably look-like but it gets difficult to come out with the identity because we, as society, are bounded by certain rules and norms. The stigma attached to a transgender is a result of lack of awareness and knowledge.”

“Hence, we started our own YouTube channel called ‘TransVison’ to let people know who a transgender is and everything about this community,” she says.

Talking about the channel, Rachana, who is the writer and editor shares, “We are planning to make webseries of eight episodes in three vernacular languages- Telugu, Kannada and Dakhini, an Urdu dialect. Two episodes in Telugu 'Aa..aa..ee.. ee Anjali', one in Kannada’s Akshara Jhanavi and one in Dakhini’s ‘Alif Soniya’ have been uploaded.”

Why vernacular languages, she quickly adds, “English speakers have wide access to information but for non-English speakers the information gets limited. To tackle this situation, we started with the mentioned languages.”

“We have collected a good amount of money, which was needed initially. There was a lack of funds; we required around Rs 4.5 lakh and this is the reason why we couldn’t proceed with the remaining episodes.

We created a fundraiser on Wishberry and collected more than the required amount in our target period,” shares a happy Rachana who feels her team, especially Moses Tulasi, the editor and producer, have been supportive.

Talking more on the impact, the holder of two Masters’ degrees- MCom and MA in Social Work, says, “I want to see a change in the perception about transpeople. I want to break this gender hierarchy. I switched my jobs frequently because people were not comfortable working with me because of the stigma attached to transgender. I want to change this.”

Along with Rachana, the channel also has Anjali Kalyanapu, Janhavi Rai and Sonia Sheikh, an acid attack survivor, who will host the episodes in respective languages-Telugu, Kannada and Dakhini.

By Meenakshi Sengupta