I was born the eldest son of an orthodox Brahmin family. I was a sickly child and very feminine. People would laugh at me and I could never understand why. It was difficult for me to go to school and college. People used to call me names.

Then one fine day, after a lot of in-depth reading and deliberation with myself to understand why I was feeling different, I got the guts to say “No.” After that my whole life changed. I became friends with a famous hijra, or transgender artist, and I started learning dance. Then I opened my own dance school. I met the celebrated journalist Ashok Row Kavi and I told him that people find me abnormal. He looked at me and said, “Baby, you are absolutely normal. The world around you is abnormal.”

I am now 36 years old and I’m proud because I’ve done a lot with my life. Not only am I a celebrated dancer, I have starred in several TV shows, and I was the first transgender person to represent Asia-Pacific at the United Nations, in 2008. I have adopted two children and am living a happy and fulfilling life.

The hijra or transgender community has held a place on the subcontinent from ancient times. Traditionally we have been involved in visiting homes on auspicious occasions, like weddings and when a child is born. While I’ve been lucky, despite this tradition a lot of other hijras face ridicule, mockery and exploitation. Hijras have limited opportunities for employment and so can be forced onto a path of high-risk behaviour. The combination of high-risk behaviour with limited prevention alternatives has resulted in the increased vulnerability of hijras to HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

Traditionally, in the public health sector, transgender women have been counted and “covered” within the key population of men who have sex with men. But the transgender community should be considered as a different group from men who have sex with men, as our needs and issues are different. Not doing so confuses gender identity issues with sexual orientation issues.

Transgender people face double stigma and discrimination from within the community and outside mainstream society as they are always looked upon as different. Men who have sex with men can easily blend in with mainstream society and people can’t point them out, whereas transgender people are  easy to spot and face hurdles in every step of everyday life. It can be something as simple as answering nature’s call; imagine the dilemma we face daily for such a simple thing as going to the loo when we are travelling or in a mall or a restaurant. Where should we go? It’s not our fault that we don’t know.

We welcome the recent judgement from the Supreme Court of India granting our rights and needs, thus ensuring the dignity and identity of all individuals, particularly people like us on the periphery.

The recent landmark decision by the Supreme Court recognizing a third gender is something positive that is helping to protect the identity and rights of future generations of hijras in India. I personally never thought this judgement would ever be made in my lifetime, but we were fighting for it. It’s wonderful that the court has ordered the government to provide quotas in jobs and education to transgender people, like other minority groups. However, there is still a long way to go. It will take a lot of effort on our part to make hijras mainstream in today’s society. One way is to make sure we have education on transgender issues as part of our education system. A lot of advocacy needs to be done.