PHOTO FORUM: Mumbai Transgendered, by Alessandro Vincenzi

The SAJA Photo Forum presents the work of photographers covering South Asia and its global diasporas in order to highlight important but often overlooked stories.

Mumbai Transgendered

Text and photographs © Alessandro Vincenzi

Urmi at home

There are estimated to be more than 25,000 transgendered persons (TGs) in Mumbai, trying to survive in the face of significant discrimination.  Some earn money by blessing and greeting people, including couples and families on special occasions.  Some work as professional dancers in bars.  Others beg for money at traffic signals or on the street.  But the majority, some sixty percent, are involved in commercial sex work.  Twenty percent of the TGs living or working in Mumbai are thought to be infected with the HIV virus, and seventy percent of the customers are married men with children.  Maharashtra, the state where Mumbai is the capital, is home to around one in five people living with HIV in India.

Some transgendered sex workers begin at the age of 14 or 15 before joining the TG community, while others start after becoming part of it.   For most TGs, joining the community is a way to express themselves in a unique culture. The community becomes the family, with sisters and moms. The 1st Lane of Kamathipura, Mumbai’s oldest and largest red-light district, is where most of the TGs live in brothels and do sex work. Normally in each brothel there is a family, where the guru is the owner and guide for each TG working and living in it.

Pooja (center) gets ready for a day of begging

Payal’s Guru, Inal, comes home while Payal prepares chapati

Other TG sex workers live in groups or with their gurus in houses in the suburban areas of Mumbai. In this case, TGs do sex work in slums or in isolated places and not in the building where they live to avoid problems with the neighbors.  Work starts around seven or eight in the evening and ends when there are no more customers. A TG can have an average of 10 clients per night, but in some cases they deal with more than twenty.

Half of the money (around $4 per client) is divided with the guru.  According to a common believe among clients, HIV is transmitted having unprotected sex only if it’s done with female sex workers and not with TGs.

Inside a brothel on 1st Lane in Kamatipura

A sex worker helps a customer with a condom before having sex. Condom donations from NGOs save lives as most TGs and customers would not choose to pay for them

BLACK BEAUTY

Black Beauty is 24 years old and lives in Kamathipura 1st Lane. Originally from a village in Kerala, she has always been more comfortable acting female.  From an early age, one of her dreams was to one day wear a sari.  When she talked to her parents about her feelings, she was still an adolescent and her feelings were a big shock for them. She said it was really frustrating to hide her nature and act as a boy. Eventually she decided to move to a bigger city to join the TG community.

At the age of 16 she moved to Mumbai and became part of a TG community living outside the city. She started to get involved in sex work and decided to be castrated in the traditional way, without anesthesia, like many other TGs did.  After castration she went back home to see her family. Their response was even worst than the first one, mainly because they worried about their reputation in the neighborhood. The family would have accepted her but not the community in the village, which would have rejected the entire family.  So she moved back to Mumbai and immediately went to Kamathipura.

Because of her beauty and the dark color of her skin, she became famous, and other TGs and customers started to call her Black Beauty.  Though she has been involved in sex work for many years, she has managed to avoid HIV infection by insisting on condom use even when more money is offered.

THE BEGGING AND PERFORMING LIFE

A known HIV-positive TG is not accepted by her friends or by the guru in the brothel because of fears that the information could affect the reputation and the business.  In some cases, TGs keep their status a secret and continue to work in the brothel or move to other locations.  If their HIV status becomes known and they can't work in the sex trade, begging will become their only source of income.

Rajeshree begs for money from a truck driver at a highway toll in the Mumbra area of Mumbai

Sonia rests while Rajeshree counts the money. Normally after four or five hours of begging, they collect 50-60 rupees each

Payal dances by a pool in front of a dozen men

Payal performs during an event to mark HIV/AIDS Day

Used condoms line the dirty floor in an abandoned building used by sex workers and truck drivers in the Cotton Green area of Mumbai

Born in Bologna, Italy in 1973, Alessandro Vincenzi got into professional photography quite late. After a degree in biology at the University of Bologna and a specialization in tropical medicine, he joined Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a humanitarian aid agency, in 2005. During his free time on missions with MSF as a biologist, he took pictures of patients and other people in distress in various contexts and countries. Beginning in 2008, Alessandro decided to become a full time professional photographer and to leave MSF. He is based in Madrid, Spain and is working on two long-term projects, “TB at European Gates” and "Transgender in India.”

See more of his work at his website.

Comments

[liv]

Lovely photos, stunning really.

[Harriet Vidyasagar]

A beatifully presented vivid pics and candid document. I am very interested to know if the TG community is interested in other forms of livelihood, or do they believe that they have no other options. Would like to know more about the subject and how young is the youngest person that you know when they leave home. Do you ever feel that we can do more for them than just document them.

[Rajendar Menen]

The photographs are excellent.

Karma Sutra Essays From the Margin, my new book, is about street, brothel and high end prostituion, trafficking, HIV/AIDS, TB, alcohol and drug abuse, Hijras, Devadasis, and loneliness and desolation on the Indian street.

You may enjoy it. Also, have a look at Fallen Angels, a pictorial book, done earlier. Both books chronicle life on the other side of the boulevard.

Amazon, and Barnes and Noble should have them.

Do get back with comments. Cheers!

[Alessandro Vincenzi]

Harriet,
in my opinion most of the transgender don't have any other option rather than begging and prostitution. we know that very few did talk show, but it's a drop in the ocean. in my opinion for sure something can be done. documenting it's already something, but of course not enough. ngos are working very hard to help them, especially those living with hiv. the problem is discrimination that don't permit them to find a normal job to have a normal life.
if you want to have more info don't esitate to send me a mail. you will find the address in my web site.

Rajendar,
i haven't seen the books yet, but sure i'll look for them.

thanks all

[PRATEEK SINGH]

Hello
I am a final year Architecture student at School of Planning and Architecture,New Delhi,India.As a part of our academic curriculum,we are supposed to do a thesis on a topic of our choice.The topic i have chosen is related to the sex workers life and their future.I am proposing a complex for these people near GB Road(New Delhi Red Light Area) which will include a Museum/Exhibition Area and Rehabilitation area for people who worked as sex workers but are not in the industry now.For the success of the project i need to research and study in depth about the life of these people.So,I request you to kindly help me out with your experience and give me the chance to make this project a success,an eye opener for everybody.
Looking forward for a positive response.
Thanking You

Regards

--
PRATEEK
+91 9811 456 876

[Prateek Singh]

Hello
I am a final year Architecture student at School of Planning and Architecture,New Delhi,India.As a part of our academic curriculum,we are supposed to do a thesis on a topic of our choice.The topic i have chosen is related to the sex workers life and their future.I am proposing a complex for these people near GB Road(New Delhi Red Light Area) which will include a Museum/Exhibition Area and Rehabilitation area for people who worked as sex workers but are not in the industry now.For the success of the project i need to research and study in depth about the life of these people.So,I request you to kindly help me out with your experience and give me the chance to make this project a success,an eye opener for everybody.
Looking forward for a positive response.
Thanking You

Regards

--
PRATEEK SINGH
prateekspa04@gmail.com,prateek_spa04@yahoo.co.in

[ashish dimri]

Dear Preston,
It reminds me a great work by Dayanita Singh on this neglected gender.
Recently,I read an article by Vikram doctor on this part of human consciouness.
As you have rightly pointed out-
We can't ignore or degrade any one.
Thanks for posting it!
yours,
ashish dimri

[exsqueeze me]

irving stone has a story about seven famous women. one of these women, accused of corrupting the morals of ancient greek youth, is presented in front of the tribunal. the defense lawyer asks the harlot to disrobe and she obediently let's her robe drop.
the lawyer then asks the tribunal: can such a beautiful body ever be corrupt or corrupting.

over a 100 years ago a man was jailed for homosexuality. on his release he held a press conference and announced to the press corps: i am going directly from here to a whore house. please put that in print, it will restore my character...

there is nothing new about sex workers. they have been a part of workforce throughout human history until the early suffragettes and later sexual emancipators of women in the 50's gave the whole thing a new context and made woman's story look beautiful.

this present story is visually as ugly as jamal in slumdog taking a dip in his own cesspool to get amitabh bachchan's autograph.

reporting is not just about nuts and bolts of a story...it's also about inventing velvet glove when dealing with grime. if you guys have nothing better to do i suggest do nothing. but it's hard to take a break when doing nothing. but you sure can do better than this.

moral: in a journalist's story there is no such thing as moral or immoral story. it's either well presented or badly presented.

[raw]

this is the another face of this genders ppls,
most of them came from uneducated family, now the trend is changed, they are studying well and even they are in politics ,,

[eva eva]

I am a western trans gender person, I am also a enunch. I was castrated when 19. I worked in sex industry most of my life. I am now 43 and i have retired from sex work, i could work still but i no longer fiancially need , I lived in India when young in Kolkatta and i saw my first hijra then. I think from then i knew i would live the same life. I know life in india is hard but here in the west their isn little sense of fraternity or community and sometimes i would like to visit my sisters in india. thank you for visually showing me my sisters one day i will visit . I would like to staRT A hiv hospice for hijra with hiv in mumbai one day . love to my sisters Eve