About 10 years ago, Manvi Madhu Kashyap gathered immense courage to reveal a deeply hidden secret to her mother. Living with this secret was causing her great distress, and she hoped that sharing it would lighten her burden and allow her to live a normal life within her family. But the opposite happened.
“When I told my family that I am a trans woman, they asked me to continue living as I was,” Madhu says. “But I was tired of living a dual life. I didn’t want to stay in a body that didn’t align with my mind. If I had stayed in that situation, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have today.” Consequently, she decided to leave her family and one day, she left home.
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Ten years later, she has moved past the dilemma of ‘what will the world say.’ She has cleared a competitive exam and is now a Sub-Inspector in the Bihar Police, proudly declaring her identity as a trans woman.
Manvi Madhu Kashyap is Bihar’s first trans woman Sub-Inspector. Alongside her, two other trans men have also become Sub-Inspectors in the Bihar Police. The Bihar government has reserved positions for transgender individuals in the police force, with one position reserved for every 500 posts. Utilizing this reservation, Madhu Kashyap has achieved this extraordinary success.
Hiding Her Identity to Pursue Education
Manvi Madhu Kashyap hails from Panjwara village in Banka district. Her family includes her parents, two brothers, and a sister. She completed her schooling and college education in her village. She shares that her school and college life were normal only because she kept her identity hidden.
When Madhu was born, she had a male physique, but her mind was that of a woman. This dual life is a stressful situation, medically referred to as gender dysphoria. To gain freedom from this duality, one undergoes a sex reassignment or gender-affirming surgery, which is expensive. The Bihar government provides substantial financial assistance for such surgeries.
Madhu says, “I was born in a male body but was mentally a woman. My body was one thing, but my mind was another. Despite this mental stress, I completed my education as a man.”
Describing the difficulties of living as a man while being mentally a woman, she says, “It was very difficult to hide my gender orientation for so many years. It felt like being imprisoned in a house. Breathing was difficult.”
However, for people from the transgender community, it is nearly impossible to study while living with the mainstream society as they are often ridiculed. But Madhu saw education as a tool that could help her stand up in society and demand her rights. She says, “Where society doesn’t help people like us, if you don’t study, you get nothing. Education is the weapon and the means through which you can demand your rights. So I was determined to study at any cost.”
Revealing Her True Identity
After completing her education, Madhu realized she had to reveal her true identity for her future life. In 2014, when she told her mother about her gender orientation, her mother was shocked and asked her to continue living as she was. But Madhu couldn’t accept this, so she left home. “If I had stayed with my family, I wouldn’t have been able to live the way I wanted to. There would have been daily beatings at home,” she says.
Leaving home, Madhu knew this was just the beginning of being rejected by mainstream society. But along the way, she met some people who supported her regardless of her gender orientation.
After leaving her family, Madhu stayed with her sister in Asansol, West Bengal, for some days. There she found a partner and moved to Bangalore with them. While living in Bangalore, she learned about a government home for the third gender community in Patna, so she moved there and started living in the home.
Aiming for a Government Job
Manvi didn’t initially aim to become a Sub-Inspector but was determined to secure a position that would change societal perceptions of transgender people. In 2021, she decided to pursue a government job and approached coaching centers in Musallahpur, Patna, but was denied admission. This was the second time she faced rejection after being disowned by her family. “The coaching centers refused to admit me, saying that my presence would spoil the environment,” Madhu recalls.
Finding Support from Guru Rahman
Amidst the struggle to find a coaching center, her friend Varsha suggested she meet Guru Rahman, who trains candidates for the Sub-Inspector exam. When Manvi approached Guru Rahman, he admitted her without a second thought.
Guru Rahman says, “Manvi was serious from the beginning. She told me that she had been to many coaching centers but wasn’t admitted anywhere. I admitted her immediately. The other students in the coaching center never mistreated her; instead, they were very supportive.”
Guru Rahman admitting Manvi wasn’t an unusual incident as transgender people have been studying at his coaching center since 2018.
“We already had transgender students in our coaching center. I asked Manvi what she wanted to become, and she said a Sub-Inspector. I wrote SI on her forehead with my finger,” he says.
Currently, 26 transgender people are preparing for the Sub-Inspector exam, and 46 are preparing for the constable exam at Guru Rahman’s coaching center.
Guru Rahman sees the reservation for transgender people in Sub-Inspector posts as a good beginning and wants similar reservations in BPSC (Bihar Public Service Commission) and UPSC (Union Public Service Commission). “I appeal to the state and central governments to provide reservation for transgender people in BPSC and UPSC,” he says.
Transgender activist Reshma Prasad says, “We want a transgender battalion, but the reservation for Sub-Inspector posts by the Bihar government is a good start.” She also wants reservations for transgender individuals in other government sectors and plans to approach the court again for this. Her next target is to implement reservations in vacancies in the education department. “There are 825 transgender individuals in Bihar. Governments provide reservations based on population, so we don’t have much hope from the government. We will demand reservations through the court,” she says.
Manvi Madhu Kashyap will soon be seen in a Sub-Inspector’s uniform in a Patna district police station. Summing up her fairy-tale journey from school to now, she says, “Earlier, my mother used to be sad that she gave birth to a transgender person, but now she says she wants to be my mother in every lifetime.”
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