DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – A Bangladeshi satellite television station has hired the country’s first transgender news anchor, saying it hopes the appointment will help change society.
Tashnuva Anan Shishir, who previously worked as a rights activist and actress, made her Dhaka-based Boishakhi TV debut on Monday, International Women’s Day. She read a three-minute newsletter and, when she finished, wept as her colleagues applauded and cheered.
“I was very nervous, I felt so emotional, but I had in mind that I had to pass this test, this final test,” Shishir, 29, said in an interview on Tuesday.
Born Kamal Hossain Shishir, she said she discovered in adolescence that she was trapped in a man’s body and behaved like a woman. She said family members, relatives and neighbors began teasing her and was sexually assaulted and exploited.
She began to feel impossible to continue living and tried to commit suicide, she said.
The worst thing that happened was that her father stopped talking to her, saying she was the reason her family was losing face, Shishir said.
“I left home,” she said.
He moved from his family home to a southern coastal district to live a solitary life in the capital, where he received hormone therapy, worked for charities and performed with a local theater group. In January, she began studying public health at a university in Dhaka, which she continued with her TV job.
Bangladesh officially has more than 10,000 transgender people, but activists say the actual number is much higher in the nation of more than 160 million people. The LGBT community faces social isolation, sexual abuse and other forms of harassment. Finding a job is very difficult and many live begging or selling sex.
Since 2013, the government of Sheikh Prime Minister Hasina has allowed transgender people to identify as a separate sex. They received voting rights in 2018.
Some changes are already visible.
In November, a charity opened Bangladesh’s first Islamic school for the transgender community.
Boishakhi TV said it wants to be part of the changes and hired a second transgender person in its drama department.
“Our prime minister has taken many steps for transgender people. Encouraged by such steps, we have appointed two transgender people, we want the company’s attitude to change through these appointments “, said Tipu Alam Milon, the deputy general manager of the station.