{"id":9223,"date":"2018-01-13T10:50:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-13T05:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=9223"},"modified":"2018-01-13T10:50:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T05:05:29","slug":"morning-mix-a-transgender-model-born-in-a-poor-nepali-village-will-star-in-indias-premier-fashion-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/morning-mix-a-transgender-model-born-in-a-poor-nepali-village-will-star-in-indias-premier-fashion-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Mix A transgender model, born in a poor Nepali village, will star in India\u2019s premier fashion show"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kathmandu (Pahichan) January 13 – Anjali Lama was\u00a0sitting in\u00a0a Kathmandu apartment when the Nepali television show came on. \u201cSangharsha,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>it was titled. Struggle. The show depicted the lives of people who\u00a0felt their identity\u00a0did not match the gender assigned to them at birth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat day I understood,\u201d Lama said. \u201cI am also that kind of person.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0farming village where Lama\u00a0grew up \u2014 in a poor family of nine in\u00a0Nuwakot, Nepal, the notion of someone transitioning genders was inconceivable, she told The Washington Post. But for as long as she could remember, Lama wanted to be a girl. Born with the male name Navin Waiba, she spent all of her time with female friends, and felt closer to her mother and sisters than her father and brothers. Her teachers questioned her behavior and her classmates mocked her, telling her she walked and talked like a girl. But as\u00a0much as Lama\u00a0tried to behave like a boy, she couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Decades later, the misunderstood schoolboy from the farming village has been transformed into an international supermodel, impressing crowds with her\u00a0confident stature, high cheekbones and striking gaze.\u00a0Next month, Lama, 32, will be the first transgender woman to walk the ramp in one of India\u2019s premier fashion events,\u00a0Lakm\u00e9 Fashion Week.
\nAnjali Lama walks the runway in a previous fashion show. Courtesy of Anjali Lama.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lama\u2019s rise to stardom in Nepal and now, in India, parallels the progress made for transgender communities in both countries in the past several years. In 2006, Nepal ended a decade of conflict against Maoist rebels, who regularly harassed and beat\u00a0transgender men and women,\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0reported<\/a>. After the insurgency, Nepal began acknowledging LGBT rights, ruling in 2007 that citizens could select their own gender identity. In 2015, Nepal began issuing passports with a third gender category \u2014 one of only a few countries to do so.<\/p>\n

In India, transgender people \u2014 known as \u201chijras\u201d \u2014 have made huge strides recently toward greater inclusion, culminating in a\u00a0landmark decision<\/a>\u00a0in 2014 by India\u2019s Supreme Court that recognized a third gender that is neither male or female. Transgender people are eligible for quotas in jobs and educational institutions, and\u00a0are even getting a boost from Bollywood films \u2014 a pop band of transgender women was featured on the soundtrack of a Hindi movie last year,\u00a0Reuters reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, Lama said, gaining acceptance in the workforce \u2014 and in rural parts of her home country \u2014 remains a\u00a0challenge for many members of the transgender community.<\/p>\n

After high school, Lama left her village to live in the capital, Kathmandu. She worked in hotel after hotel, getting laid off quickly at each one because of her \u201cidentity,\u201d she said. Customers and staff would tease her, calling her names she didn\u2019t want to ever repeat. \u201cMentally, I was tortured,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One night in Kathmandu, when Lama was about 19 years old, she saw a group of transgender women on the street wearing makeup and heading to a club.<\/p>\n

She approached them, telling them she identified with them, and asked\u00a0them for advice. They gave her the phone number for a community office for LGBT affairs. Two days later, she visited the organization, and\u00a0in 2006, she would begin working there as a member of staff.<\/p>\n

Over the years, friends and colleagues would tell Lama\u00a0that her tall, lean frame would be perfect for a modeling career. So in 2007 \u2014 the same year that Nepal\u2019s Supreme Court ruled in favor of gender self-identification \u2014 Lama participated in a beauty pageant, learning how to walk and carry herself as a model. Her career took off in 2009 when\u00a0a national magazine in Nepal, Voice of Women,<\/em>\u00a0featured her in a photo shoot on Kathmandu\u2019s transgender community.<\/p>\n

And yet, she struggled to be selected for gigs, no matter how well she trained\u00a0and\u00a0prepared for auditions. Her agent would tell her it was because she was transgender. Others made her believe it was because of her age \u2014 in Nepal, most women leave the modeling industry after the age of 25. She auditioned for Nepal\u2019s premier fashion week three different times, and was rejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, maybe I shouldn\u2019t do modeling,\u201d she said. But, she decided, \u201cI should try.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So she set her sights outside of Nepal, hoping for better luck in India\u2019s fashion industry. She traveled alone to Mumbai, with no connections or help, and auditioned for the 2016\u00a0Lakm\u00e9 Fashion Week. She was rejected.\u00a0The following year, she gave it another chance, competing against more than 100 other women for five spots in the show. She\u00a0was selected\u00a0to model for several leading designers at the show, running from Feb. 1 to 5 in Mumbai.<\/p>\n

This season\u2019s model pool will also include a gender neutral model and a plus-size model, Jaspreet Chandok, fashion head at IMG Reliance, an organizer of the event, told Reuters. The event planners hope to \u201ctake these conversations forward, shining light on some these issues and bringing them to the national consciousness,\u201d Chandok said.<\/p>\n

Most people in the village where Lama\u00a0grew up still do not understand her new identity, she said, including her father.\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019ll never see me as a daughter,\u201d she said. Her mother \u2014 one of the few relatives who supported Lama\u2019s\u00a0transition \u2014\u00a0died in 2010.<\/p>\n

Lama said she dreams of walking in other international fashion shows, and completing her sex-change operation. She underwent breast augmentation in 2010, but has yet to complete her transition. She also hopes her modeling career\u00a0will empower members of the transgender community\u00a0\u201cto do whatever they want in life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of me,\u201d she said, \u201cmaybe they can get some confidence to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copy :\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (Pahichan) January 13 – Anjali Lama was\u00a0sitting in\u00a0a Kathmandu apartment when the Nepali television show came on. \u201cSangharsha,\u201d\u00a0it was titled. Struggle. The show depicted the lives of people who\u00a0felt their identity\u00a0did not match the gender assigned to them at birth.
\n\u201cThat day I understood,\u201d Lama said. \u201cI am also that kind of person.\u201d
\nIn the\u00a0farming village where Lama\u00a0grew up \u2014 in a poor family of nine in\u00a0Nuwakot, Nepal, the notion of someone transitioning genders was inconceivable, she told The Washington Post. But for as long as she could remember, Lama wanted …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,490,3],"tags":[458],"class_list":["post-9223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-slider","category-society","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9225,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223\/revisions\/9225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}