Padmini Prakash, India’s first transgender TV news anchor urges parents to be more receptive of their transgender children

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The News Minute | September 21, 2014 | 06:12 pm IST She is India’s first Transgender TV anchor – Meet Padmini Prakash, a 34 year-old transgender based in Coimbatore who has broken the stigma faced by this section of society and has become the face of Lotus TV news channel in Coimbatore. “It was not a job I went in search of. Lotus TV approached me and asked if I would be willing to take up the job,” said Padmini Prakash on the phone to The News Minute. She has appeared on TV shows and other talk shows in the past, but “becoming a TV anchor was an ambition I always nursed”, she said. “I have always wanted to do this in Tamil”. Padmini has worked on projects related to HIV in the past and is a Master in Training of trainers. “This doesn’t feel like an achievement just for me. A lot of transgenders must come out. They have a lot of talents in them, “she said.Padmini, however has faced quite a lot of societal abuse in the past. “Earlier, in Coimbatore it would be difficult to walk on the streets. People would throw stones, pull our hair”. Now, she says that things have improved and people are more receptive to the transgender community in general. Despite her parents living in the same city, she has no contact with them. “They have not accepted this yet. I am what I am. This is what harassment…is I have tried a lot but there has been no solution. A lot of problems will be solved if people come out,” she said about the transgender community. She was only 13 years old when her parents disowned her, said NDTV in a report. She was a first year B.Com student who dropped out of college after relations with her family strained, said the Times of India. She has travelled all over Tamil Nadu and Andhra on work. She now lives with her husband in the suburbs of Coimbatore. To parents in general she had a strong message: “Parents, when they come to know that their children are transgenders they should accept them for who they are. They should not isolate them. Parents should accept them and society should accept them”

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