Satvik Sharma
Birthplace:
Mathura, Uttar Pradesh
Residence:
New Delhi
Qualification:
MBA
Inspiration:
Self
YOUNG AND DARING: CREATING SAFE SPACES!
The world is full of mysteries, waiting for us to unfold them. The more we believe in ourselves and accept who we are, the more we can focus on the wonderful human being. Here’s a young man, who never thought he’d make it this far, today proud of having faced it all and emerged victorious!
He was assigned female at birth but never felt like one. Growing up years were tough for him – for he had a lot of questions. People knew him to be a girl, but he felt like a boy and so would always hang around with boys. He was continuously sexually molested by the cisgender boys of his age – a fact that he still hasn’t come to terms with and shivers as he mentions it. His many questions narrowed down to one after this. He’d now only wonder whose fault it was!
From the very beginning, his elder sister tried to dress him up like a girl but he didn’t ever like it. He was told to behave like a girl, but why would he when he knew he was a boy! Time passed with these confusions and gradually visible differences – jibes, abuse and bullying increased. But what exactly was causing all this, he was unknown to it!
Was he wrong to be in this body; but wasn’t he born like this; hadn’t God sent him like this? Was he wrong to trust the guys he hung around with? Was it the people whose mentality was rather closed? Why was he being treated like this? Why the humiliation? Do the ‘people’ for whom families sacrifice their choices, their kids, not find it fit enough an issue to address?
Dying is never the answer
Satvik was growing up with his questions and confusions, gender identity crisis, no one to confide in and physical and hormonal changes. He had heard of words like hijra, lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and the like, he could not associate himself with them. While looking for answers, one day in 2014, he watched the story of Gazal Dhaliwal, her transition and success as he watched the famous Amir Khan show, Satyamev Jayate. He felt a connection but couldn’t understand it still. “Probably because I was too young and a story of transman could have made things easy for me to understand,” he shares.
He was 25, man enough to do wonders, but here he was still confused, still frail under pressure – so he thought of himself with the never-ending abuse from all around. On one of his social media handles, he posted something cryptic about suicide and heard back from whom he now calls his guiding angel. Lucknow’s Samar Kapoor told him that he felt him and understood him. It was Samar who told him that he was a man trapped inside a female’s body. The realisation was the end of his misery. He started exploring and learnt more about the term ‘transgender man’ – that Samar told him he was. Everything started falling into place; it was like he had attained solace and finally felt at home.
Happy to have finally found the answers, he soon struggled with a different set of questions. How will he come out with the truth, how will his parents react, will they accept him or not, and whatnot! Falling into another deep pit, he attempted suicide. Surviving it did he understand that the journey forward wouldn’t be easy and that dying was not the solution.
Regearing himself, he then appeared on his final exams and topped the class. Now that everything was clear, he researched GID, joined LGBTQ+ groups and interacted with Aryan Pasha, a transman model. Pasha made him understand the value of coming out but also to give time for his family to understand. Satvik, finally, gathered the courage and after three years of getting the GID medical certificate, he told his mother the truth. She was shocked and couldn’t fathom a word. What their assumed daughter had done to herself was not something they could easily come to terms with. “I decided to leave home. None of us wanted to deal with the social pressure. You see how society soils things!”
“People, including parents, sometimes think we wake up one day and decide to be a transgender person; it is never like this. We are born this way, and we aren’t ashamed of it. The thing that hurts the most is that our parents disown us because after all, ‘what will society say’. Being a transgender person is not a choice. No incident in life can make me a transgender person; I was born like this… and living like this for 28 years is enough suffering!”
Gradually, his family had just begun to accept him, and his father passed away. “I was saddened. But in a strange twist of emotions, I also thought that I had a person less to confront. Am I not a human? But I had always loved him and my family, even when they had completely disowned me! And what had they disowned me for – pressure and fear that society brings? At that moment, society was more important to them than me! But I still love all of them!”
Creating his own path
It’s a strange world, Satvik says sadly. He had decided to undergo SRS or Gender Affirmation Procedures and needed money for it. He started looking for jobs but couldn’t find any. “My assigned gender at birth and the way I carried myself like a male didn’t match and so, nobody wanted to hire me. The society that doesn’t want girl children, kills it in the uterus ironically wants a female! The society that rapes women of all ages wants females for marketing jobs. What for! That’s all the more shocking – female charm works in a marketing job not qualifications!” In a life-changing decision, he joined Gandhi’s fellowship where the journey of self exploration, self awareness started.
After that he joined TWEET Foundation as a National Level Manager where from he worked on the project Samarthan. Thereon, he worked with four registered and unregistered regional transgender men groups.
“This was one and first of kind project in which we were working with these groups to understand the intricate details of how NGOs/CBOs work. Advocacy, leadership, self-awareness and guidance to work in the social sector. Transgender men working for their rights with the support of transgender men was something happening for the first time in India. This was more of an awareness creation project; we just guide transmen, tell them about their rights and duties, often helping them find the right path to do it.”
Well, things happen, and we need to learn to move on. Satvik has now found a purpose in life. He knows how to earn and simultaneously work for the community. He works with the National Institute of Social Defence under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment as a Consultant in Transgender Division and has helped co-found the Transmen Collective, that provides transgender men safe spaces to network, gather information and find the right support for transition.
Too much for a 29-year-old youth? That’s Satvik Sharma for you!
VISION FOR THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY
“An educated, empowered community facing no gender discrimination. I know it’s a far-fetched dream as of now.” He believes that everyone should be given the right to earn a livelihood and live well. “What we are shouldn’t matter unless others’ lives are disrupted. Everyone is equal, and no one has the right to name-call anyone or consider them unworthy.”
MESSAGE FOR THE MAINSTREAM SOCIETY
Satvik wonders that the entire LGBTQ+ community is already several years behind the rest of India, then why does society fear them. “We don’t ask for any special treatment. Just what we have been deprived of all these years – some acceptance, some respect, which can bring education and work opportunities. We are humans just like everyone else, we aren’t any incurable disease. And what we go through every day is beyond your imagination. We are slightly different but sent by God and yet, He has sent us with a brain, a heart, two hands, two legs. For a minor difference, why discriminate so much?! When onwards have gender and sex become the right qualifications and not what our school certificates say?”
FIVE FACTS ABOUT SATVIK
He is a good listener.
He is emotionally driven.
He loves reading fiction; Dan Brown is his favourite author.
Blessed with creativity, crafting, recycling, reusing and upcycling are his hobbies.
A Potterhead, he has two tattoos: one says ALWAYS, the other is a baby elephant.
