Homeless...all ‘cause of gender

CHENNAI: Riding on the backseat of a cab in Chennai, dreamy-eyed Smiley asks her friend Glady what her dream house would look like, she responds,”I stopped dreaming about my house, Smiley!” Living Smile Vidya (Smiley) and Angel Glady, are two theatre artists hunting for a house in the city. What makes their journey a struggle, is their gender. In in her documentary, Is it too much too ask, Leena Manimekalai records the ordeal transgenders go through while looking for a home.

“Some will refuse immediately when you call. Others will ask you to come before they refuse,” said Smiley, speaking to CE on the sidelines of the screening of the documentary recently at Asian College of Journalism.

“Are you a pure vegetarian? Please don’t disturb us!” a landlord says before slamming the door on their faces. Another woman does not even let them enter her property. They run from door to door only to be rejected for not having the appropriate caste, colour, complexion, marital status and even for not having an IT job!

The documentary switches between private discussion between transwomen, their interactions with landlord, their theatre performances and even a song. Glady’s face lights up on stage when the ‘landlord’ says, “We are not looking for family. We are okay with bachelors.” Her delight takes a sharp turn when he says, “Bachelors... but not spinsters!”

Smiley and Glady had to convince the landlord that they do not do sex work, will pay their rent regularly, that men won’t come to their place...that they will almost be invisible. “Sometimes landlords benevolently ask us to find another place for no reason,” said Smiley adding that they finally found a house after searching for seven months.

Oppression takes several forms and Gee Imaan Semmalar, a transman, who is also a part of their theatre team, said: “The burden of proof is the common suffering faced by the oppressed. We always have to go that extra mile to prove that we are ‘normal’,” he said.