Vijayatharsiny Thinesh, GPJ Sri Lanka
Antony Queentus Angel says that after her family rejected her identity, she found a home in a neighbor’s house. This neighbor would later become her foster grandmother.
JAFFNA, SRI LANKA — A few years ago, Antony Queentus Angel’s hair was a contentious issue. “I love to grow my hair,” the trans woman says. “But everyone at home kept scolding me to cut my hair, saying, ‘Why are [you] growing hair like a girl?’”
These days, her mother proudly combs Antony Queentus’ hair and dresses her in sarees, while her sister sews her dresses. “All this is a sign that they have started to accept me,” she says.
In Sri Lanka, such victories for transgender people within the close walls of a house are rare. The constitution doesn’t explicitly protect sexual and gender minorities, and same-sex relationships are still penalized. This, together with the lack of acceptance in society, leaves them vulnerable to abuse and harassment. Antony Queentus was lucky to eventually have been accepted, but others in the country are still fighting battles within their homes. Some are still excluded from their biological families and communities.
As she navigated her identity, Antony Queentus’ journey took her to many homes away from home. Sometimes, a neighbor’s house became home. Sometimes, a different city. In a country that is still just beginning to create a language of acceptance for non-normative genders and sexual identities, Antony Queentus and other trans activists are trying to create a space to celebrate and support those like her. In 2019, she founded the Jaffna Transgender Network, a volunteer-run network that advocates for transgender people by providing resources and community-building activities, and pushing for policy change. Antony Queentus hopes to use the platform to improve the lives of transgender people and enable them to explore the world.
Her own journey started in the Gurunagar area in Jaffna. When she was 8, Antony Queentus began feeling different. In school, she gravitated toward the women’s seats. At night, when everyone in her family was asleep, she wore women’s clothes. Sometimes, she would hide her sister’s clothes and wear them at friends’ houses.
At first, her family did not accept her behavior. Her father punished her mother for it. “Rather than beating me, he beat my mother,” Antony Queentus says. Outside the home, Antony Queentus faced similar rejection. Neighbors called her derogatory names.
Experiences like this are not rare. Kiruththiga Tharumarajah, an independent gender and communication consultant and visiting staff member at the University of Jaffna and the University of Vavuniya, says that childhood experiences like Antony Queentus’ often leave significant psychological scars. He blames social values, cultures and traditions in Sri Lanka. “We do not have a complete view of transgender people,” he says. “[How can we] accept them when they are thrown out of their homes?”
For Tharumarajah, family acceptance is a crucial part of the journey toward transgender rights. When the family hates and isolates transgender people, he says, they are put at greater risk. But acceptance can positively influence the rest of society.
Antony Queentus says that very few transgender people in Sri Lanka are accepted by their families. “Most people don’t even try to understand them,” she says. “No matter what, they are all your children. Families should understand their LGBTQ members. If you don’t understand them, no one outside will.”
When Antony Queentus was 9, she found solace in a neighbor’s house when she started visiting the woman who lived there. Later, most of the woman’s children moved out, and her husband passed away. She took Antony Queentus in and became her foster grandmother. “When Angel used to visit our house during her younger days, I grew fond of her. We didn’t have any young children at home, and she would help with small tasks around the house,” says the foster grandmother.
Although her foster grandmother didn’t much understand transgender issues, Antony Queentus says she felt freer living in this new home. To this day, she calls Antony Queentus by her dead male name. It doesn’t bother Antony Queentus, and she feels no need to explain. What matters to her is that there is care. “If someone outside mocks me, Grandma [would] go and fight them,” Antony Queentus says.
At 17, in 2018, Antony Queentus moved to Colombo, far from her family, and worked as a tea-maker at a newspaper company. There, she found a freer atmosphere. Women wore T-shirts and jeans, prompting her to dress that way. She also learned about the process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate. The Ministry of Health provides the document to help transgender people change their genders and names on their birth certificates. “It felt like the tears that I cried for all this time ended,” Antony Queentus says. “My name was written as Angel on the certificate.”
With the help of her friends, Antony Queentus underwent sex reassignment surgery in India in 2019. “I longed for that day for so many days,” she says. “That was my life’s passion. I can’t really say it with words.”
Anutharsi Gabilan, a lecturer in the University of Jaffna’s media studies department, says part of the reason Sri Lankan society discriminates against transgender people is their media portrayal. For example, in movies, they only appear as sex workers. “Society sees them in the same way,” Gabilan says. Although more complicated depictions of transgender people are emerging, cinema that stereotypes them still exists.
Religion is another factor. “In Sri Lanka, based on religious texts, people see queer people as an expression of sin,” Gabilan says. While the government’s gender recognition certificates are a sign of progress, Gabilan sees a need for stronger laws that protect transgender people and for societal change.
Makenthiraraja Madhubala, a transgender woman, says the Jaffna Transgender Network has helped her embrace her identity. “It’s nice to know that a community like mine has a voice and that we have an organization if we have a problem,” she says. “I suffered a lot during the corona epidemic. The Jaffna Thirunar [Transgender] Network had given me food packs.” Madhubala adds that the network has also helped her transgender sister set up a beauty business by providing her with the products she needs.
Antony Queentus runs the network from Jaffna, where her family and foster grandmother live. She says that when she returned from Colombo, she told her family about her surgery. They did not react much. This time around, her family didn’t seem much bothered.
Her brother-in-law played a crucial role in creating a soft landing for her return. He had lived in Colombo and knew about the struggles of transgender people. “He understood me,” Antony Queentus says. “He asked everyone not to call me by my male name but to call me Angel, the way I like.”
Then, as the pandemic hit and the world shut down, Antony Queentus’ family slowly accepted her. One moment stays with her. She had cut her hair, worried it was growing too long. Her family, which had previously complained about the length of her hair, asked why she was cutting it. “I was very happy,” she says.
Her mother, Antony Queentus Yuukaleshra Jeyamalar, says that she now accepts Antony Queentus as she is. “I had four sons and one daughter. But now, I have two daughters and three sons. No matter what, they are all my children. Angel is now my daughter. Let her be as she wishes.”
Antony Queentus understands and forgives her family’s journey. But she worries about other people in her community. “Anything can always happen. It is wrong to think that because I suddenly changed myself, people in society should also change with me. Let it change slowly. There is still time,” she says. “I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, and it’s not my job either.”
