The blessed and the damned: transgender women talk about India's ambiguous attitudes towards them

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Heraldscotland/Vicky Allan, Senior features writer / Saturday 16 January 2016 / News

"PREMA beats out a lulling rhythm on her double-ended, mridangam drum. As she does so, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the small room that is her entire home – stove in the corner, bedroll to one side – she is demonstrating one way in which trans women have earned money for centuries here in India, where they are considered to have special powers. A 3,000-year-old South Asian tradition of a third gender, of eunuchs, means that while these trans women, "