DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – A satellite television station in Bangladesh has appointed 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, debuted on International Women’s Day on Dhaka-based Boishakhi TV on Monday. She was reading a three-minute news bulletin and crying as her colleagues cheered and cheered.
“I was very nervous, I felt so much emotional, but I thought I had to overcome this ordeal, this last test,” Shishir, 29, said in an interview on Tuesday.
Born Kamal Hossain Shishir, she said she found 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 teasing 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 and said she was the reason her family was losing face, Shishir said.
“I left the house,” she said.
She moved from her family’s home in a southern coastal district to lead a lonely life in the capital, where she underwent hormone therapy, worked for charities, and performed with a local theater group. In January, she began studying public health at a university in Dhaka, where she continued her work at the TV station.
Bangladesh officially has more than 10,000 transgender people, but activists believe that the actual number in the country with more than 160 million people is much higher. The LGBT community faces social isolation, sexual abuse and other forms of harassment. It is very difficult to get a job, and many people live by begging or selling sex.
Since 2013, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has allowed transgender people to identify themselves as a separate gender. They got 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 has said it wants to be part of the changes and has appointed a second transgender in its drama division.
“Our Prime Minister has taken many steps for the transgender people. Encouraged by such steps, we appointed two transgender people. We want society’s attitude to change through these appointments, ”said Tipu Alam Milon, deputy managing director of the station.