16 long years addressed as Krishna Singh, hung his school uniform for good, reincarnated himself into someone he always wanted to be – a girl, and named herself Naina Singh. And he was able to do all this because of the immense support he received from his family and friends.
Naina Singh is a transgender, who was born as a man, but her binary gender identity is that of a woman. As told by her, Naina felt trapped in boy’s body for 16 long years. She was completely confused about her sexual orientation ever since she had understood the difference between being a boy by birth and her desire to be a girl. Caught between consulting counsellors and psychiatrists and clarifying his gender status, initially, Krishna thought himself to be gay. However, the status of being a homosexual still did not solve the dilemma that he was caught into. Finally, a year back, counsellors and psychiatrists clarified the fact that Krishna Singh was actually a girl trapped in a boy’s body.
On discovering this fact, Mishi Singh (mother), welcomed her daughter, Naina Singh with open arms and helped her buy her first dress. Mishi Singh helped Krishna getting relieved from his confusion of being gay to identifying his gender of being born as a boy and the desire of living as a girl. Hats off to this mother, who left behind societal pressure and has lived for her child!
Naina wanted to be identified as a girl in school as well and so, gave up on her trousers (boy’s uniform which she used to wear before) and wore salwar kameez. The school Principal also permitted Krishna for changing uniform. In fact, she was given permission of growing her hair as well. The school Principal also assisted in registering Naina as a transgender with the CBSE board.
After witnessing a journey full of depression and suicidal tendencies, Naina finally succeeded in her life by identifying her correct sexual status. Naina shall undergo laser-hair removal and hormone replacement therapy once she is done with her class XII exams.
Naina runs a youtube channel Nainaqueenb, wherein she records different chapters of her journey. She uploads stories of her daily life struggles, perplexities of her life as well as her weekend parties and her make-up tricks, what she is very fond of.
She is certainly an example of grit and determination and a support which many people could look up to. More than Naina, I think it’s her family and friends, who are worth receiving praise and applause, who have always stood by her and let her become Naina from Krishna. Naina is willing to start an NGO to help transgender children identifying themselves at early age and not getting caught in the dilemma that she has undergone.
Transgenderism isn’t a phenomenon unknown to the world. Naina isn’t a sole example of re-incarnation of life in the same life. We have heard about the famous Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, who has earned huge name for herself. She has been quite instrumental in getting transgender community the recognition which was much required. Laxmi, along with a legal agency, had petitioned the Hon’ble Supreme Court to recognize transgender as a third category. Resultantly, in April 2014, the Supreme Court passed an order, thereby officially recognizing transgender as a third gender. She was, in fact, the first transgender person to represent Asia Pacific in the United Nations in the year 2008. This is just one of the long lists of credentials that she has earned for herself and the transgender community. Laxmi was fortunate enough, just like Naina, to having received support from her family.
Having talked about the acceptance, it cannot be denied that there is still lot of resistance and looking down upon by people in accepting transgender and transgenderism.
Bobby Darling is another known transgender, who was born as Pankaj Sharma and transformed to being Bobby Darling, again after witnessing lot of struggle and hardship in life. From being beaten by her father to eloping to Mumbai with her boyfriend and being left alone, to working in dance bar, Bobby Darling has, finally, been able to carve a niche for herself and become what she always wanted to. In fact latest news about Bobby Darling also says that she is due to get married to a business man in Bhopal soon this year!!
I thought that it is solely the orthodox mentality here in India due to which such people suffer, until I came across an unfortunate incident that was in limelight off late. A girl named Shivani Bhat, brought up in California for most part of her life, wanted to live as Shivy, a boy. But to her dismay, this was not approved of by his family. On becoming aware about the fact that Shivy was a transgender, his parents brought him to Agra, locked him inside the home, abused him both verbally and physically, took away all his identification papers, his computer and his phone. Shivy was lucky enough to have escaped and sought help from a Delhi based NGO through his friends in US. Shivy approached Delhi High Court with a writ petition, declaring him as a legal adult, seeks some protection and then get his documents back. Police protection has been granted to Shivy as a relief from the High Court.
Bidhan Barua has a similar story. She was biologically born as a boy, but got her sex changed to that of a girl. Bidhan Barua had to move Court to fight her disapproving parents to let her undergo sex reassignment surgery. She now calls herself Swati and is married a man called Rinku Talukdar.
I felt really happy for Naina after I read the news and thought to myself that if not public at large, but at least her family and friends rendered tremendous support to her. I was glad that change is happening until I came across news of other Transgender, who were not as fortunate and had their bit of struggle to achieve what they had to in life. Nevertheless, I am quite hopeful that slowly there is acceptance of transgenderism and gradually, this change will become quite rampant. At least the youth can move ahead and accept the phenomenon and respect the third gender, who are so made by nature!
