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She fought her way past security guards. Now she’s Tamil Nadu’s first transgender umpire

The Indian Express·Venkata Krishna B·about 1 month ago
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Last September, a security guard at a premier educational institution in Coimbatore wouldn’t let Rithika Shri through the gate. She had come to umpire a cricket match. It was her first game since her gender transformation a year earlier. “The security guard didn’t even allow me inside. The first thing he did was to chase me away. But, that day, something in me told me to confront him and tell him, ‘I’m here to be an umpire.’ I fought my way inside, but before I could enter the ground, another set of security guards arrived and stopped me,” she tells The Indian Express . A few calls were made. The nod eventually arrived. But by then Rithika had been through a range of emotions. “I couldn’t control my emotions that morning. It was a big moment for me, to start a dignified life rather than go around for collections or being sexually abused. But what I faced again was rejection. That morning I spoke my mind, I asked a few stern questions — why can’t a transgender live a normal life and be treated equally?…

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