There was a time in Bangalore when an entire area, a suburban area of
Bangalore was the most secured place to reside for most of the Female to male
transpeople and their woman identified partners who had
migrated from all over south India. That is because most of the Hijra and Kothi community lived in that area. Sowmya lived in that area like a queen who could take care of
every community resident of that area. She being a Male to Female
transperson (a Hijra) would be the first person to attend to any crisis
of community people. Every festival was like a party in her house where
she would host all the community people including us. She would flirt
with us and at the same time gave us all the care that even our family
people could not give. Dashing, daring, sexy Sowmya is a close friend of
mine and is a very outspoken person. She is a very articulate public
speaker. In the recent public meeting with politicians of Karnataka to remove the Karnataka Police Act 36 (A), she was vibrant and lashing out the Karnataka ruling party for having introduced this law. It was proposed to the Government last year to introduce this law while the Karnataka govt also spoke about trans reservation and giving jobs to trans people in High Court of Karnataka. There was protest last year in July to not to introduce this law but the govt ignored it. This is a law that is drawn from the Hyderabad Eunuch's Act, which is extremely horrible and unconstitutional. Now sexual and gender minorities of Karnataka are organizing themselves strongly to protest against this law and urging to remove it. Sowmya is a leading and a strong trans activist who is in the forefront of this struggle.
