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India's Third Gender

July 31, 2014 | Al Jazeera America
By
Sami Siva

Chaya Singh, who won Miss Koovagam 2013, a beauty pageant contest for transgender women organized during the festival, poses for a portrait on the street in Villupuram where her and her friends solicit clients. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Group of transgender woman seen soliciting customers for sex work near their hotel in Villupuram, Tamil Nadu. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

A male friend of one of the transgender women seen with her at their room in Nataraj Lodge. During the annual festival in May, transgender women take part in religious rituals as well as commercial sex around town. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Sahana (far left), Miss Koovagam 2014 and Chaya Singh (right), Miss Koovagam 2013, along with their friends seen with a client in their room in Villupuram. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Used condoms along the road across from the bus station in Villupuram where visiting transgender women meet their clients. It is alleged that the many girls take advantage of the surge in commercial sex during the festival. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Tamil, 19, (left, blue dress), helps her friend Aarthi,16, (right black dress) to get dressed for a beauty contest which she has won. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Reema, 23, from Tuticorin gets ready to attend transgender beauty pageant organized with the support Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Group of transgender women from Tuticorin, a town in South Tamil Nadu seen at their hotel, Nataraj Lodge getting ready for their day. During the annual festival in May, transgender women take part in religious rituals as well as commercial sex around town. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Aarthi, 16, gets ready to attend a beauty contest which she has won. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Shivani, a transgender woman from Chennai (Madras) poses for a photograph before her turn to go on the stage during Miss Koovagam 2014. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

A transgender woman seen on the streets of Villupuram negotiating with clients. During the annual festival in May, transgender women take part in religious rituals as well as commercial sex around town. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Rangeela, 36, leader of transgender women, and president of HIV Positive People Welfare Society in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu offers her prayer as the priest ties Thali (mangalsutra), a religious object to signify the wedlock, around her neck. During this annual festival transgender women take part in the annual ritual during which they get married to the god and become widowed the next day, a symbolic ritual based on a belief carried from the Hindu epic Mahabarata in which Hindu God Krishna transforms into a woman and marries Aravan in order to fulfil the last wishes of Aravan (Pandava prince) who was sacrificed the next day to ensure the Pandavas victory in Kurukshetra war. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Transgender women offer coconut by breaking against the ground, one of the many ritual offerings in Hindu culture, during the festival in Koovagam. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Local men wait in the open field lit by full moon light, surrounding the temple in Koovagam where transgender women offer sex for money. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Rangeela, 36, changes into white sari to complete the ritual of becoming a widow after the wedlock with the Aravan, the local god, as part of her prayers during the Koovagam festival. In India its a custom that widowed wives wear white sari after the death of their husband. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Photographs of Rangeela over the period of years showing the transformation from a boy to a woman. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Rangeela shares a laugh with her boyfriend Mahesh at her house in Tuticorin. Mahesh and Rangeela met 9 years ago and been together since. She has undergone SRS and breast implant surgery since they have known each other. Mahesh is married and has two kids but spends most evenings with Rangeela. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Chinna Papa (left), transgender woman and Head of Neithal an NGO which is focused on HIV awareness and testing among transgender and MSM (men who have sex with men) communities and Rangeela (right), president of Tuticorin District HIV Positive Welfare Society seen together at Rangeela's office. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Basic make-up kit of a Aarthi, 16, at her wardrobe in the community house in Tuticorin, where she shares room with four other transgender girls. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Transgender girls seen working along the highway outside of Tuticorin town. The girls are trained to use condoms and tested for HIV regularly by local NGOs. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Malar, a transgender girl from Tuticorin district seen with her 'boyfriend' , a regular customer of hers' along the highway outside of Tuticorin town where the transgender girls work. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Tamil , 19, gets ready to perform at a funeral near Vilathikulam, an hour way form Tuticorin town. Many transgender girls in the villages also perform at the village events, religious events, and funerals to earn a living. The livelihood of the illiterate transgender woman is often limited to commercial sex or begging. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Tamil sings while her friends dance at a funeral near Vilathikulam, an hour way form Tuticorin town. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

Tamil, a transgender girl from Tuticorin, realized that she wanted to become a woman when she was 12. She left her house soon after and begun taking hormone therapy. Last year she went through a traditional procedure in which boys remove their genitals in traditional way to become a woman. Image by Sami Siva. India, 2014.

In May 2014, Pulitzer Center grantees Sami Siva and Michael Edison Hayden visited the Koovagam religious festival in Villupuram, India. The festival is the largest gathering of transgender women in India. Siva captured the daily lives of these women, who live and work on the margins of Indian society.