CHENNAI: R Selvi is a qualified physiotherapist but works as a security guard at a private software company. Ask her why and tears well up in her eyes. Selvi, born as Muthu, is a transgender who lost her job as an assistant physiotherapist at a sports club in the city after she underwent a sex change operation."I was working with YMCA , Nandanam, and was promoted and sent to a famous sports club to work as a physiotherapist," she says. In April, after she underwent a sex change operation, Selvi says she began facing discrimination from her colleagues. "I was forbidden from using the women's toilet. Slowly, I was ostracised," she says. Her patients however, did not have a problem and continued to consult her, she says.But colleagues continued to make life difficult for her and in June, she was asked to resign and was told it was the collective decision of the management. "There is a lack of awareness about transgenders, and most people discriminate against us," she says. So Selvi has converted a part of her house into a small clinic and sees some of her old patients. "The income is not enough to make ends meet, so I work at night as a security guard," she says.Selvi's case is not a stray case of discrimination against transgenders in the work place. S Grace, who holds an MPhil in Tamil literature, also works as a security guard at the same firm. "Though I am qualified to be a Tamil professor, no one wants to employ me. I have just got a part-time job as a Tamil translator. People are okay with that as they don't have to see me and interact with me everyday," she says bitterly.M Venilla, who has a degree in sociology, was working as an accountant in Alagappa University for a year but quit two months ago because the staff began misbehaving with her. "People think a transgender can only be a beggar or a sex worker. It's humiliating because we are normal people with aspirations like everyone else," she says. For the past month, she too has been working as a security guard and is looking for better options."Life for transgenders is hard as they crave social acceptance," says Reshma Sharma, an activist who works with transgenders and winner of the Tamil Nadu government's first Kalpana Chawla award for bravery in 2003. "Most transgenders are intelligent people wanting to lead a normal life. The sexual preferences of a person should not hinder their professional growth," she says.R Vasuki, director of social welfare, says the department of social welfare is making efforts to integrate transgenders into mainstream society. "Recently, LIC offered to hire them and now the Indira Gandhi National Open University has come forward to offer them courses. We are also funding self-help groups for transgenders in many districts of Tamil Nadu," she says.