Transgender pastor calls for acceptance

Esther Bharati elaborated that when she tried to get into the Theological College, her admission was strongly opposed to by the pastors. “Despite Bishop Ezra Sargunam granted me to do theology, many pastors opposed it,” she recalled. “They said I had an evil spirit in me and that makes me to act like a woman. But in reality, I wanted to be ‘me’ and was longing to be called as a woman,” she said. 

“My parents mistook my feminine qualities to do with my co-educational primary background; they shifted me to a boy’s school. I felt uncomfortable. Though I scored 90 per cent in SSLC, I dropped out of the school and left home as my parents failed to accept the changes in me,” the pastor said.

After reaching Chennai, Esther lived among the transgenders and in 2008 underwent sex reassignment surgery. “I sought comfort in the Bibilical classes and wanted to do Theology and become a pastor,” she added. 

After finishing theology in four years, she was appointed as the pastor of a small church in a tiny village. “And this time too, I started to face problems. Though the people accepted me, the senior pastors asked me not to touch the heads of people while praying,” she said. 

Stating that around 40 per cent of the transgenders in Tamil Nadu are from Christian community and they embrace other religions for want of livelihood, she urged the society to sensitise the parents of such children to accept their biological disorder, which was not inherited, but inborn.