RAJASTHAN: Aroutine knock on the door altered the course of Preeti Choudhary’s life on a May morning in 2018.
An English professor at the University of Rajasthan, Preeti, had just returned home in Jaipur and was on maternity leave. Around 8 am, the doorbell rang. As she opened the door, two members of the hijra community entered, clapping in the traditional badhai ritual — to bless her newborn and demand money. What followed shook her.
“They asked for a large sum,” Preeti recalls. “When I questioned it, they explained that nearly half goes to their guru, and the rest is shared. They are left with very little.” That moment dismantled a stereotype. What society often dismisses as coercion or “easy money,” she realised, was a structured survival system shaped by exclusion.
Today, Preeti is recognised as a prominent ally to the transgender community. Her journey culminates in her forthcoming book, ‘Trans People in India: A Decade After NALSA’ (2026). Her awakening came months before the reading down of Section 377 and years after the NALSA judgment recognised transgender persons as the third gender.
She secured a policy research grant. What began as an academic exercise evolved into a deeply personal engagement with the community. Breaking in was not easy. Years of stigma, compounded by colonial legacies like the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, had made the community wary of outsiders. “I approached them with humility,” she says. Gradually, trust formed and stories emerged. She recalls a transwoman—a person who is biologically male but self-identifies as a woman—in Delhi who was sexually assaulted by multiple men and denied medical care. Another case involved a transwoman from Himachal Pradesh who adopted an abandoned child. The child struggled to access education because of her parents’ identity.
“What stayed with me was not just the violence,” Preeti says, “but its normalisation.” Many spoke of rape, assault, police apathy, and institutional neglect. One trans person described being placed in a male prison cell. Her findings led to policy recommendations: gender sensitisation for police and prison staff, inclusion of transgender data in crime records, institutional bodies, and improved access to healthcare, education, and reservations.
Today, she has authored and edited multiple academic works. Her research marked a turning point—from scholar to advocate. She received a state award for her work on transgender communities. Several of her ideas entered policy frameworks, though implementation remains uneven. “The problem is not just policy gaps,” she says. “It is implementation.” The COVID-19 pandemic exposed these gaps. “When the lockdown was announced, I kept asking—what happens to a community dependent on physical interaction?”
For many transgender persons, livelihoods depend on badhai, begging, or sex work. Lockdowns wiped these out overnight. On March 24, 2020, the day the nationwide lockdown was declared, Choudhary published one of the earliest articles highlighting the crisis. Her intervention drew attention, prompting government assistance. But structural barriers persisted. “Many could not access benefits because they didn’t have bank accounts,” she says. She wrote to banks advocating inclusion of a third gender option in forms.
In June 2020, when a metro station was proposed to be named “She Man Station,” Choudhary objected. “Inclusivity cannot come from misunderstanding identity,” she says. The station was later renamed “Pride Station.” In June 2021, she submitted 34 recommendations to the Rajasthan government, including protection cells, counselling centres, research funding, and financial support for gender-affirming surgeries. Several were incorporated into policy measures approved soon after. In March 2022, she helped organise Rajasthan’s first Transgender Festival. She pushed for third-gender inclusion in administrative systems.
She also supported transgender and non-binary students—‘non-binary’ referring to people who self-identify outside the male–female gender categories. “She is empathetic towards the transgender community,” says Rudranshi Singh, a transwoman research scholar at the Central University of Rajasthan.
Deepak Kashyap, a Jaipur-based psychologist, says, “Preeti’s desire to always stay open, learn and apply that learning with compassion has been a source of comfort for me.”
Pushpa Maai echoes those sentiments, saying, “She is indeed a very helpful, sensitive and resourceful person. She has been very helpful in raising funds for individual transgenders through crowd funding.”
“Preeti has been a breather for me and many of her students on campus. As an aspiring researcher, I find great value in her work,” says Prityasha (name changed), a student.
Preeti is critical of legal amendments placing identities under bureaucratic scrutiny. “Why must individuals prove who they are? This is systemic violence.”