Susan's Place Transgender Resources

->-bleeped-<- in India: 'People just use us for sex'

In India, kothis are men who dress and live like women, who are not necessarily homosexual but often take partners who conform to a typically masculine gender role. Edged out by society they meet in the city's dangerous 'cruising areas', where they are targeted by criminals and police alike; in a culture that outlaws same-sex practices they are easy prey for blackmailers who threaten to expose them as homosexuals. Mintu says that he is fed up with seeing his friends come to harm

    * Guardian Weekly, Friday 4 July 2008 09.00 BST
   
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/04/india-gender (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/04/india-gender)

Since childhood I have been putting on make-up and wearing saris. I used to play with dolls and I dressed up in drag. I didn't know what kothis were. I thought I was the only person who was like this.

I was sexually abused several times from the age of seven. I thought I had done something wrong and that it was a sort of punishment from God. So I stayed quiet, thinking I had to suffer all things.