Delhi has shelter homes for men women children, disabled, drug-addicts but not one for the third gender /
The Delhi government has shelters for men, women, family, children, disabled, pregnant women and drug addicts but none for the transgenders /The government also does not have data on the population of homeless transgenders//Photo by Arun Sharma/ Hindustan Times/
Maya 30, was born as Amit Kumar and loves Rajkumar /The two are not married but have been seeing each other for four years now Rajkumar is contractual labourer in weddings and parties. Maya begs for a living. She says Rajkumar is her husband/
Every evening, Rajkumar checks into a men’s shelter but Maya sleeps under trees within the compound /They were living together in a hutment, next to the Yamuna, but the swollen river washed away their only home after heavy rain last month /
could have moved into the men’s shelter with him. But I do not want to sleep beside other men Maya says as she unwraps the bed sheets under a tree /
God made us different. I am not a man /I wish I could sleep with my husband but we cannot afford a home. Sleeping together on the road is not practical / We sleep not very far from each other she says /