About four years ago, Kshama Bindu of Ahmedabad made headlines at the national level. Dressed in a traditional red lehenga, she looked like a perfect bride. But there was a twist: in an effort to break free from gender norms and patriarchy, she was marrying herself in the first instance of monogamy in India.
A lot has changed for Bindu, who now goes by the name Mukunde and identifies as a trans-masculine person. After suppressing his masculinity for years, he had recently decided to embrace it by mustering the courage to undergo hormone replacement therapy and planning to change his gender on his identity documents to male.