Psychosexual Health in Indian Transgender Representation: Perspectives from Indian Cinema and Selected Transgender Autobiographies

Abstract

Objectives: This study examines how the 2023 biographical web series Taali challenges and reconstructs long-standing stereotypes of trans women in Hindi cinema, dramatizing the life of activist Gauri Sawant. It explores the relationship between film representation, psychosexual health literature, and transgender autobiography to understand transgender identity and subjectivity. Methods: The study uses qualitative textual and thematic analysis using transgender theory. Taali is read against A. Revathi’s The Truth About Me and Laxmi Narayan Tripathi’s Me Hijra, Me Laxmi, alongside research on the psychosexual and mental health experiences of trans women in India. The analysis focuses on narrative strategies, character representation, and the cisgender gaze. Results: Taali challenges traditional Hindi cinema roles that cast trans women as comic characters, sexual predators, or tragic victims, foregrounding agency, dignity, and activism instead. The series uses personal narrative to add emotional depth and humanize the trans experience. However, it continues to frame the transgender subject through cisgender intelligibility, requiring the protagonist’s humanity to be affirmed in terms palatable to mainstream audiences. Taali thus displaces some entrenched stereotypes without fully escaping established structures of representation. Conclusion: Taali marks a significant shift in the portrayal of trans women in Hindi visual media, moving away from reductive stereotypes toward more nuanced, empathetic representation. However, its reliance on cisnormative narrative structures shows that transgender representation remains constrained by mainstream conventions. By bringing together transgender theory, psychosexual health discourse, and autobiographical narrative, this study demonstrates both the transformative potential and continuing limitations of current depictions of transgender life on Indian screens.