Chennai: First trans-woman sub-inspector completes training

Chennai: K. Prithika Yashini (26) has finally passed out from Tamil Nadu Police Academy as the first trans-woman Sub-Inspector in the country on Friday. She completed her one-year training along with 1,027 other Sub-Inspectors  at the Academy near Chennai. "I am very happy for completing the training. Training went well. Everybody was very cooperative and understanding," she said after the passing out parade which was witnessed by chief minister Edappadi K Palanisamy, chief secretary Girija Vaidhyanathan and other senior IPS police officials including DGP T K Rajendran at the academy.

“All of them had completed the training and the deployment will start in another few weeks”, a senior officer said.  Prithika's dream of donning the khaki uniform was not an easy task to complete. Only after fighting a long legal battle was she allowed to write the examination of Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board. She appeared for the written examination armed with a high court order.  After lot of struggle she cleared the interview and a court order was passed to select her to the post of SI.

She grew up as a boy named Pradeep in Salem, but when she reached teenage, Pradeep knew he was not a boy. He then came to Chennai and was readily accepted by the transgender community in the city. The community helped him to become Prithika who began her career working as warden in a ladies hostel.