‘Being called a homo made me feel angry’: Transgender activist recounts her childhood in her memoir

My memory goes back to the summer of 1989. It was the beginning of May; I must have been about 16 years old at the time.

The high school examinations had finally come to an end. Suddenly I had plenty of leisure time – no books, no studies, no school. I waited lackadaisically for the results, I was not too concerned about what the outcome would be. On one of those days, I decided to pay a visit to Ebok, my maternal grandmother. The occasion was the yearly chaklon katpa, the ritual meal offered to the deity of the clan.

As far as I can remember now, it was my first visit to Ebok’s house. I still have a vivid memory of the house – it was situated at the entrance of the Kongpal neighbourhood. The first thing one saw was the imposing sangoi, an outhouse with a roof of aluminium sheets, that stood majestically in the spacious courtyard. The courtyard was surrounded on three sides by living quarters that also had aluminium roofs. The eastern side of the house was flanked by a thick cordon of giant reeds and Indian cedars, and to the south of the sangoi, there grew a...

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