Nayana Udupi was born as a boy in an orthodox family in Mangaluru. But she became an outlaw when she adopted the female sex and ran away from home to build a life on her own.
“It took me 15 years to find a job. I have done my share of begging and commercial sex work and I’m not ashamed about it, since I had no other options,” she said. “It’s time we moved on from the learnings of Ramayana and Mahabharata. It’s time you stopped seeking our blessings and started giving us work.”
Ms. Udupi was speaking at a panel discussion on inclusion in the corporate world, organised by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Products of India last week.
Neelam Jain, founder of PeriFerry, a social enterprise that creates sustainable and dignified livelihoods for the transgender community in India, helped Ms. Udupi in her placement at ThoughtWorks India, a global technology company. The idea, she said, started with a social impact fund that she received in her corporate job. She wanted to do something for the transgender community, and believes that if you make sure they are growing, the company is growing.
“In my journey, I met some brilliant people from the community, much different from how we see them on the roads. I saw a lot of potential and value that the entire industry is missing out on,” said Ms. Jain.
When the members of the transgender community get placed in companies, their families start accepting them too.
Parmesh Shahani, head, Godrej Cultural Lab India, said at Godrej, LGBTQ+ inclusion is a part of the daily conversation. “For so many companies, LGBTQ+ inclusion is a box that you tick because your global parent wants you to.”
The LGBT+ market in India, he said, is worth $200 billion. In 2016, the cost of exclusion due to homophobia was $32 billion.
“A 200 billion market opportunity or the 32 billion cost of not acting on it, whichever way you look at it, it only makes sense to include the community. So, when you are being inclusive, you are not doing anyone a favour. You are only doing a favour to yourselves,” he said.
Meenakshi Priyam, chief human resources lead, GSK India and representative of OPPI’s HR Committee, drew parallels with the sense of minority that everyone goes through in their career, “maybe because they are a native Hindi speaker in a big metro, or because of age, or because of being in a leadership team.”
Anyone who has been in that space understands the value of inclusion, Ms. Priyam said. “There has to be an ownership and intent to enable inclusion. Inclusion is not celebrations of events that you forget the next day, but it is a mindset. There must be activities to show visible allies.”
