Meet Koushik Hore, a transgender who is giving voice to his community

A transgender student has broken his silence to question taboos and create communities for them to interact, share and earn their livelihood

Born in Malda, West Bengal, Koushik Hore’s interest lay in everything feminine. Like every family that would want to keep such traits hidden, Hore’s family too grew silent and admitted him to an all-boys school. But, Hore failed to be a boy. Like every other transgender struggling with gender identity, he too was subjected to bullying and became a recluse. What followed was typical — self-doubt, poor academic records and irregularity in school. 

That’s when he got in touch with a youth development organisation, Prantakatha, in West Bengal. “They were extremely gender friendly and assuring,” recalls Hore. It was there he found many like him suffering in silence, facing discrimination and exclusion in all spheres of life. “With the support from Prantakatha, I started forming a space that could give voices to people like me who feel caged by homophobic silence,” he says adding “I simply decided to question the silence”.

That’s how QueerIUs or Queer Identity and Us was born in 2015. It was a youth-led initiative to create dialogue on sexuality, gender, sexual health among queer and non-queer youth. Hore was amazed at the response he got and it made him realise how his silence could create some noise and become a strong voice. “We created queer friendly spaces in colleges and established a Bengal network of queer people mostly led by transgender women across 11 districts of Bengal in the name of Bengal Queer Collective,” Hore adds. 

Hore recalls how while working under unManifesto campaign supported by the UNFPA in 2016, the LGBTQ community was asked about their demands. “One of the most significant demands was to create employment opportunities for transgender people,” he says. 

“They are deprived of the right to education, employment and decent livelihood. They are even deprived of proper share of their paternal property because of their distinct gender identity forcing them to resort to begging or risky sex trade,” he adds.

Hore realised there was a need to make the transgender community independent. With the help of communities like Prantakatha, Pravah and Youth Collective, Hore started Sathrangi, a trans-feminine Indian livelihood venture, in 2016. It was a livelihood programme for transgender in West Bengal in collaboration with four organisations, Association of Transgenders and Hijras in Bengal (ATHB), Gour Banglar Samghati Samity (GBSS), Amity Trust and Prantakatha who had been working on transgender rights in West Bengal.

It was during one such community-led initiative that he met the founder of Indian School of Development and Management (ISDM), who encouraged Hore to join ISDM’s first batch of Post-Graduate programme in Development Leadership, in 2017-18. Hore considers the years at ISDM as being a gamechanger in his life. It not only provided him with the approach to look at life differently, but also honed his skills of how he needed to learn and unlearn, and develop his organisation in the development sector. “I think living life with dignity is an important factor for any human, which I was searching for long. ISDM gave me that. This realisation further helped me in developing my integrity towards creating safe, inclusive space where all can live without being judged. It moulded my approach in many ways and gave me the confidence to become a confident change agent. My suggestion for a gender neutral toilet in ISDM was not only accepted but also appreciated and implemented,” Hore adds. 

In the last four years, Hore has co-initiated several activities that aim to create positive impact in the sphere of basic human rights of transgenders. In 2017, he co-initiated an informal learning and care giving centre called “Sapno ki Udaan” that is now supported by the UNICEF. The centre is run by transgenders and has helped 45 kids and adolescents from the manual scavenging community. In 2018, along with Prantakatha and ATHB, Hore created a LGBTQ network called “South Asian Young Queer Activists Network/SAYAN” within the South Asian countries — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Srilanka. This initiative was supported by the US Consulate General, Kolkata. The network has been able to conduct three successful conferences till now and a WhatsApp group keeps them connected where they discuss their way forward. 2019 saw Sathrangi set up a boutique shop in Malda in collaboration with GBSS. The shop is run by three transwomen.

In his bid to break silence, Hore with his initiatives has not only given a voice to the queer community, but also made them independent.