Chitrangada: An Initiative Against Gender Discrimination

‘Third Identity’ (তৃতীয় প্রকৃতি) is a collage of experiences, painted in the colours of the rainbow. In fact, not one collage, but two. One of them – the documentary – goes on-screen. The other one stays off-screen, consisting of many incidents and stories associated with the making of this documentary. This off-screen collage portrays a significant journey of Chitrangada, in which we – its members – learned to look at life from a different viewpoint. On one hand, each stage of the making of this documentary enriched us as gender activists, as humans. On the other hand, the first-hand narratives of discrimination and dehumanization on the trans persons made us more and more determined to go on with our efforts. The documentary shows how the patriarchal society preaches ‘normalcy’ and persecutes the trans individuals, how the community continues to struggle against this oppressive reality. We have been fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of this brave indomitable struggle through our documentary. We have also documented the unpleasant truth about how our governments have always been contemptuous, abusive, violent and inhuman towards the rights of this community. Through this work, Chitrangada has not tried to do an in-depth theoretical analysis. The motive has been to bring certain truths out into broad daylight. These are the truths that the mainstream media ignores, for there is no assured TRP out of them. Chitrangada aspires to enlighten as many people as they can about these truths, start discussions and debates so that gradually more and more voices take up the demand for transgender rights.

The documentary can be seen here or directly from this link.

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