12. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi

Laxmi has always loved to be in the limelight... whether it is
under the stagelights as a dancer right from the age of
seven, or arclights on the sets of the movies and television
shows she has acted in, or the flashlights of news cameras
across the world... she has been a showstealer. As India's
most visible and controversial Hijra (transgender), she has
balanced working for the community at the grassroots as
an activist with using her glamorous celebrity image to
push the envelope right upto an UN task force meeting.
Never scared to speak her mind, she also is perhaps one
of the few Hijras to stay with her biological family and be
accepted by them.

Watch BOLO Video of Laxmi Narayan Tripathi

Excerpts from BOLO Interview

Laxmi: I went to Toronto, my first exposure to the outer
world… and I got my passport. And in my passport it says
I'm a female, I'm a TG, I'm a eunuch - so three sexuality on
one passport. But I got it, hello, I had it!

And I went there, I saw the outer world, I saw the TGs, I
met the people there - it was a good exposure. And I was
glad when the Asia Pacific Sex Workers Network gave their
seat and they appointed me on their seat… and they voted
me to be on the seat for the Civil Society Task Force for the
UN President's Office, for the high-level meeting. It was a
major exposure for me!

I was an Indian TG woman on the Asia Pacific Sex
Workers Network… but I talked about the sex workers'
issues, I talked about TGs, I talked about MSM, I talked
about every sexual minority, because this was the first time
in the UN Civil Society Task Force that there was a TG
woman… and I was totally decked up in saree, in my whole
glamour… because I thought its not only me, it's my
country, I am representing my whole country. It was an
honor. I still remember when I walked to the UN General
Assembly… I just touched my Indian flag! It was a proud
moment for me, that being a hijra, I could make it till
here… which I never ever thought in my life.