One of the most castigated communities in India is the messiah of several poor people during the COVID-19 Lockdown in Gujarat. The Transgender community in the Vadodara city of Gujarat is feeding the needy across the city despite facing the stigma.
Kinnar Noori Kanwar, a transgender individual in Vadodara along with the members of Kinnar Samaj (Transgender Community) engaged in distributing food to the poor in the city. Witnessing a heartbreaking scene of a hungry child being reprimanded by a parent for asking for food, the community decided to take the matter in their hands to help out the people in need.
The community members initially supplied cooked food to almost 250 households for a week. Later, they resorted to the distribution of flour, lentils, rice, sugar, oil and spices to bout 700 low-income families and to some local slums. The distribution was funded by mortgaging and selling the gold owned by members of the community.
Gold for the transgender community holds a lot of importance. Being banished from society, the members of the community do not rely on their families or children in the old age. As part of their retirement plan, the transgender persons invest in gold to sustain themselves when they cannot go out to earn for a living. The members spent their retirement money to ensure that no one goes to sleep hungry during the lockdown.
The community members faced mistreatment and stigma while doing the noble deed. However, this did not deter them from helping those who needed it. They even shared their contact details to the poor families and asked them to reach out in case they face a shortage of food.
Members of the LGBTQ community, especially the transgender persons have been living in a perpetual lockdown since ages. They are ridiculed, ill-treated and viewed with suspicion by the society. They live in isolation most of their lives anyway. In spite of existing laws, they do not get respected in the manner that they deserve. The treatment that they receive can easily drive a wedge in society. Even so, at the time of need, they did not step back from helping out the people who ideologically might be no less than those responsible for their misery.
