Biography

Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is an Indian transgender rights activist, dancer, and writer who is known for being the Acharya Mahamandaleshwar or Chief of Kinnar Akhara, a religious organization working on the promotions of ideas of Hinduism and LGBTQ+ community in India.Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is also considered a demigod.Laxmi belongs to an orthodox Brahmin family hailing from Uttar Pradesh. She was born the eldest of the three children of her parents and was assigned a male at her birth. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi as a Child.According to her, she was named Laxmi even before her birth, by her grandfather, a pandit, who had also predicted that her mother would bear seven children, out of which, only three would survive.Since her childhood, she liked to dance and used to dance to Bollywood numbers. She also used to give dance performances in her school and college functions.She was a very sick child, suffering from asthma (a problem she still has) and was very feminine, which became a problem for her as her peers used to laugh at her and called her by the derogatory terms such as Chhakka and Gur, while her relatives, especially a distant cousin used to sexually abuse her with his friends.In class 5, when she was overwhelmed with people calling her gay and homo, she contacted the only publicly gay person she knew Ashok Row Kavi, who told her that she was fine and nothing was wrong with her, and she should continue to live her life and focus on her education, both academics and dance.When she was in class 6, she did her Arangetram in Bharatnatyam, and by class seven, she had started her own dance academy and began working as a model coordinator.In 1998, when she was a model coordinator, she chose to become a Hijra after she met the Hijra community through Shabina, a trans woman who was the brother of a model she worked with. Talking about it, she said, I went to Byculla where the head of Shabinas Lashkar Gharana, Lata Naik, held court. Nervous and unsure, I finally gathered the courage to ask those assembled there, I want to become a chela. How much is the fee? To my surprise, they all burst out laughing. Lata guru, who went on to become my guru, said, There is no fee, child. If you want to become my chela, come. My initiation ceremony, the reet, followed soon after I was given two green saris, which are known as Jogjanam saris signifying the inculcation into a new way of life, and crowned with the community dupatta..In Hijra (eunuchs, intersexual, or transgender people) community, the ritual of Guru (mentor) and Chelas (disciple) is followed in which a Guru trains Chelas and is like parents to them. Her Gurus name is Lata.