At the annual Koovagam festival in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, more than 100,000 have gathered recently for a celebration of acceptance and community. The festival is rooted in a story from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, in which participants symbolically marry the deity Aravan and then publicly mourning his death the next day. Many trans attendees describe the event as one of the only times they can openly express themselves without harassment or fear. Trans women also explain how the festival provides more than spiritual meaning but is a space for cultivating chosen family. As one participant observes, “This is the only time of the year when we are not a minority. It’s like a trans-Barbie world.”
The festival is especially important this year considering recent regressive changes to India’s Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act. The amendment has “scrapped the right to self-identify gender and introduced medical scrutiny into the legal recognition process.” It is now more difficult to be legally recognized by the Indian state as transgender.
