Deepa Nisanth's reality check as Vanitha is praised for transgender on cover

"For a magazine known to publish cooking recipes and articles on ‘ways to make your husband fall in love with you’, such a move is indeed commendable."
Deepa Nisanth's reality check as Vanitha is praised for transgender on cover
Deepa Nisanth's reality check as Vanitha is praised for transgender on cover
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When Kerala’s leading women’s magazine Vanitha featured a transgender model on its cover page in its latest edition, the ‘path-breaking’ move was hailed by many.

Deepa Nisanth -Assistant Professor at Sree Kerala Varma College in Thrissur- who is not known to mince words when voicing opinions online was apparently not impressed.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Deepa wrote about why transgender issues were important and went on to elaborate on Indian society’s hypocrisy in dealing with the transgender community.

“The fact that people seem to consider it ‘path-breaking’ vouches for its significance. I am repressing the question on whether Vanitha chose the cover picture for her sexual identity or her beauty,” she writes.

Sarcasm was very evident when she comments that for a magazine known to publish cooking recipes and articles on ‘ways to make your husband fall in love with you’, such a move is indeed commendable.

Referring to the recent harassment faced by transgenders in Kochi, Deepa points out how even mainstream media seems to always side-step such issues. “Just how many politicians did actually visit them at the hospital? How many ministers went on to raise the issue in the assembly?" she asks. 

She also seconds MLA VT Balram’s stance that the proposed pension policy for the transgender community would prove effective, only if either the qualifying age is brought down from the suggested age of 60 years, or if the pension amount is increased.

Tearing into societal hypocrisy, she remarks that many believe in a ‘false notion of social responsibility’ which seems restricted to lashing out at misogynistic films like ‘Kasaba’, while deliberately choosing to  play ignorant of deep-rooted social evils of our times.

Paving way for discussions on the subject, Deepa adds that demanding uniformity is simply a form of authoritarianism and that diversity is the need of the hour.

You can read the entire post here:

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