DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – A Bangladeshi satellite television station has hired the country’s first transgender news anchor, saying it expects the appointment to help change society.
Tashnuva Anan Shishir, who previously worked as a human rights activist and actress, debuted on Dhaka’s Boishakhi TV on Monday, International Women’s Day. She read a three-minute newsletter and, after finishing, cried while her colleagues applauded and shouted.
“I was very nervous, feeling very emotional, but I had in mind that I needed to get through this ordeal, this final test,” said Shishir, 29, in an interview on Tuesday.
Born Kamal Hossain Shishir, she said she discovered in her early teens that she was trapped in a man’s body and behaved like a woman. She said family members, relatives and neighbors started to provoke her and she was bullied and sexually exploited.
She began to feel that it was impossible to continue living and attempted suicide, she said.
The worst thing that happened was that her father stopped talking to her, saying that she was the reason why her family was losing prestige, said Shishir.
“I left the house,” she said.
She moved out of her family’s home in a southern coastal district to live a lonely life in the capital, where she did hormone therapy, worked for charities and worked with a local theater group. In January, she started studying public health at a university in Dhaka, where she continues to work alongside the TV station.
Bangladesh officially has more than 10,000 trans people, but activists say the real number is much higher in the country 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 by begging or selling sex.
Since 2013, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has allowed trans people to identify themselves as a different gender. They were given voting rights in 2018.
Some changes are already visible.
In November, a charity group opened Bangladesh’s first Islamic school for the transgender community.
Boishakhi TV said it wanted to be part of the changes and hired a second transgender person for its drama department.
“Our prime minister has taken many steps for trans people. Encouraged by these measures, we named two trans people. We want society’s attitude to change through these appointments, ”said Tipu Alam Milon, deputy managing director of the station.