Naaz Joshi, the first Indian transgender woman to win the Ms. World Diversity 2018 title, has accused the staff of Park Inn hotel in Sector 15 here of gender discrimination for refusing her booking for an event later this year.
Speaking to The Hindu over phone, Ms. Joshi claimed that she was in talks with the hotel’s sales manager for the last over two months to book around 20 rooms for a Queen Universe 2019 pageant to be organised in mid-June. But her booking was cancelled after the general manager Ashok Ganguly came to know about her gender. “After being in talks with the sales manager since January 29 and exchange of emails, she finally called me to make an advance payment of ₹3 lakh on Tuesday,” claimed Ms. Joshi.
Cited permission issues
She said that everything seemed to be going right before she met Mr. Ganguly who she claimed “looked down” upon her. “After being in talks for over two months, they told me that they need to take permission from the regional sales officer (RSO) before the deal could be signed. I told them that they should have done it before they called me to make the payment. I have faced this discrimination before and I knew that it was because of my gender,” alleged Ms. Joshi, also a winner of Ms.Trans Queen India Classic 2018.
Staff deny charges
The hotel staff has, however, denied the charges.
When contacted Mr. Ganguly vehemently denied the charges saying that Ms. Joshi was seeking booking for more than 25% of the inventory with them and it could not be done without the prior permission of the RSO.
“We have around 50 rooms and a lot of corporate guests keep visiting. So it was not possible to book 20 rooms for her without the permission of the RSO,” said Mr. Ganguly, denying that the staff had called her for the advance payment.
The general manager also said that he called her on her phone on Wednesday evening to inform that they could only spare six rooms on the said dates. He said all guests were equal for them and there was no question of gender discrimination.
Took to Facebook
Ms. Joshi said that if it could happen to her it was easy to imagine what could happen to the underprivileged transgender woman. Ms. Joshi also took to Facebook saying that “Why discrimination at such a big hotel called Park Inn? Only because I am a trans woman, I am denied of rooms...”.
