CHENNAI: Latha S, a 30-year-old transgender says she's a prostitute by compulsion and not by choice. While that may be true of most women and men who sell sex for money, individuals of the third gender - stigmatised, ridiculed and shunned - have far fewer chances of opting out of the profession than anyone else.

Latha says she did not have an education and no one would give her a job. "I have been in the profession ever since I discovered I was a transgender and joined the community," she says. "Once I left home there was no one to educate me or help me get employed."

Her job, Latha says, involves violence from drunks and rowdies. "Customers often do not pay and policemen harass us and force us to pay a large chunk of what we earn for protection," she says.

"I hate being a prostitute but I don't know what else to do," she says. What is worst, she says, is the vulnerability that she and other transgenders face and the constant fear it engenders.

Transgenders usually leave home when they are around 16 years old, says A J Hariharan, the founder secretary of Indian Community Welfare Organisation (ICWO), an NGO that works for the welfare of the homeless, sex workers and transgenders. "They join other transgenders and are pushed into begging and prostitution," he says. "Lack of basic education means they are unable to get jobs and the stigma attached to them means even manual labour is not an option."

Hariharan says companies could, as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes, look to help transgenders. "That would be empowering for members of the community because it would involve acceptance of the fact that transgenders are part of society and bring them into the mainstream, apart from giving them a livelihood," he says.

But the discrimination that transgenders face leaves them with little optimism that they could win acceptance and integrate with society. "Social acceptance? I don't know if that is possible," says transgender Raji Sekar, 25. "We can't even take a house on rent because few landlords would want transgenders as tenants."

"I did not wish to be transgender," she says. "I was born this way and that is what people should realise for society to accept us," she says.

Her companion Ambika M, has bruises on her face and hands. She says a group of men beat her up a few days ago. "We face intolerance all the time so no body cares about our safety," she says. "Not a day goes by without a transgender being beaten up by customers or drunkards."

