Bangladesh TV hires country’s first transgender news anchor

A Bangladeshi satellite television station has hired the country’s first transgender news anchor, saying that the appointment would help change the society.

Tashnuva Anan Shishir, who previously worked as a rights activist and actor, made her Dhaka-based debut. Boishakhi TV Monday is International Women’s Day. He read a three-minute news bulletin, and after crying cried and applauded his comrades.

Shishir, 29, said in an interview on Tuesday, “I was very nervous, I was getting very emotional, but I was in my mind to pass this test.”

Born to Kamal Hussain Shishir, she said that she found in her early teens that she was trapped in a man’s body and behaved like a woman. She said that family members, relatives and neighbors started harassing her and she was sexually abused.

He began to feel that it was impossible to survive and attempted suicide, she said.

The worst thing was that his father had stopped talking to him, saying that he had a reason his family was losing, Shishir said.

“I left the house,” he said.

She moved from her family’s home in the southern coastal district to a secluded life in the capital, where she did hormone therapy, worked for charity and worked with a local theater group. In January, she began studying public health at a Dhaka university, which she is continuing with her job at a TV station.

Bangladesh officially has more than 10,000 transgender people, but activists say the actual number is much higher. The LGBT community faces social isolation, sexual exploitation and other forms of harassment. It is very difficult to get employment, and many people live by begging or selling sex.

Since 2013, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has allowed transgender people to identify as a different gender. He was given the right to vote in 2018.

Some changes are already visible.

In November, a charity group opened Bangladesh’s first Islamic school for the transgender community.

Boishakhi TV It wanted to be a part of Parivartan and has hired another transgender person in its drama department.

“Our Prime Minister has taken many steps for transgender people. Encouraged by such steps, we have appointed two transgender people, we want to change the outlook of the society through these appointments.