DEVANAMPATTINAM, India — The transformation of transgender women into goddesses for an annual Hindu festival takes place in an atmosphere of reverent, somber concentration. Laugh lines vanish, replaced by an impassive mask. Skin becomes stone.

As they prepared to perform in the Mayana Kollai festival in a fishing village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, some of the dancers slipped into trances so deep it appeared they might have fainted. The photographs, taken over the past three years, are by Candace Feit.

Indians who decide to live as kothis — also known as hijras, kinnars or aravani, depending on the region — are born male and typically have male lovers.

Unlike transgender people in the West, they leave a conservative mainstream culture for an equally conservative subculture. Some live in communes with a strict network of rules under the authority of leaders they refer to as “mothers” and “grandmothers.”