Locating healthcare in daily trans lives | Moderator: Pavel Sagolsem, Program Manager, Nazariya (edited, in the speaker's own words):

This fireside chat is a conversation starter that looks at how trans people navigate healthcare in their daily lives, while exploring the questions: What are our stories? What are our narratives? What are our desires? What are our wishes? What are our expectations?

I would like to begin with my pronouns. I’ve always identified as a genderqueer person, ever since I was a young child.

But of course, it took time to actually realize what genderqueer is and to come across a community. I think when you are a little different (as they call it), then finding a community becomes one of the ways through which you start understanding yourself, or you start exploring yourself from a point of self-affirmation, and the same thing happened when I moved to Delhi.

I was studying applied linguistics and translational studies at Hyderabad Central University, where I came across cultural studies and feminism. That's where I found conversations which had more relevance to my life, my feelings, my desires. When I came out in Hyderabad, figuring out myself and understanding my community became more important, and I decided to go for another Master's in gender studies.

When I came to Delhi, the queer faternity that I interacted with, was genderqueer people, and they asked me, 'What are your pronouns?'

The pronoun they were using for themselves was 'ze' – I could make a little sense of it as a linguistic student, but I asked further, 'How did these pronouns come about?'

They told me that it's basically for people who are genderqueer, genderfluid and it's a mix of 'he' and 'she.' As a linguistic student, I know that when 'h' and 'sh' come together, they become 'j', and it makes perfect sense.

This really captured my interest and I could find a certain belonging, a certain worth, a certain identity or certain terms that basically talks about my experience, which I also couldn't have really found words to express in.