Chennai: Cops help woman to be with transman partner

Chennai: Chennai police on Saturday surprised many rights activists when they allowed 26-year-old woman PhD student to go with her transman friend. This happened despite the fact that the woman's influential family lodged a complaint saying she had gone missing since August 16.

When the woman in question decided to live with her childhood friend, who then became a transman (a female to male transsexual), her well-connected business family opposed it and lodged a complaint with the police. The woman wanted to get married to her transman friend, an engineer working in an MNC, for some time now.

The police traced the couple at a mall in Velachery and took the two, in a vehicle arranged by the woman's family to the Kaladipettai police station. They initially detained the girl’s transman partner and sent her to a government home.

It was then that lawyer and activist Sudha Ramalingam, with whom the couple had been consulting for some time, stepped in and drew the attention of the Chennai police commissioner A.K. Viswanathan to the issue. 

“He was very helpful. He called up and briefed Washermenpet deputy commissioner who called back the police team, escorting the woman with a government home. The woman was later allowed to go with her partner,” Sudha Ramalingam told this newspaper.  It was a good thing that the top brass in the Chennai police understand these kinds of issues well. Now only some in the lower rank need awareness, she added.  

When the woman’s parents protested against the decision to send her to her partner, the police team told them that their daughter was a major and she can decide on her life partner.