Bangladesh satellite television station has hired the country’s first transgender news anchor, Tashnuva Anan Shishir on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
Tashnuva Anan Shishir, who previously worked as a rights activist and actress, debuted on Dhaka-based Boishakhi TV on Monday. She read a three-minute news bulletin, and after finishing cried as her colleagues applauded and cheered.
Tashnuva has had to face years of sexual discrimination and humiliation and her father also shunned her. Daily Mail reported that Tashnuva made four suicide attempts to escape the constant humiliation.
Talking to Daily Mail, the 29-year-old Tashnuva said, “The bullying was so unbearable I attempted suicide four times. My father stopped talking to me for years. When I couldn’t cope with it any more, I left home… I couldn’t stand the neighbours telling my father about how I should act or walk in a masculine way.”
Born as Kamal Hossain Shishir, she said she found in her early teens that she was stuck in a man’s body and behaved like a woman. She said family members, relatives, and neighbors started teasing her and she was bullied and sexually exploited.
A performer by profession, she has been modelling and acting for a long time. And not just television, Bangladesh will be seeing more of her as this year, she signed up for two films, where she will play the role of a female football coach in one, Dhaka Tribune reported.
