Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju

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Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju
Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju in 2023
Born (1997-06-17) 17 June 1997 (age 26)
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Alma materKasturba Medical College, Manipal
Occupation(s)Medical Doctor
Actress
Activist
Content Creator
Years active2021–present

Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju is an Indian actress, medical doctor, content creator, and transgender activist known for her works in Television, and Hindi cinema. She began her career as a primary care physician and made her acting debut with Made in Heaven, an Indian web-series that premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 8 March 2019.[1][2]

Early life[edit]

Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju was born on 17 June 1997 in Bangalore, Karnataka into a Telugu/Bengali-speaking family.[3][4] She was assigned male at birth. She lived as a boy for the first 20 years of her life. Her father Suresh Gummaraju is an engineer, her mother Haima Haldar is an architect, and she has a younger brother Agastya Gummaraju who is a Computer Science engineer.[3][4] Dr Trinetra completed M.B.B.S. in 2021 and her internship in 2023. She shot for her acting debut in Amazon Prime Original - Made in Heaven 2 entirely during her medical internship.[5] She experienced gender dysphoria as a boy, and began presenting herself as female during college. She would dress up in drag for college fest fashion shows. She came out in 2018 as a transgender woman and changed her first name to Trinetra. She went through sex reassignment surgery in 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. Her family eventually supported her through the process.[6] She experienced gender incongruence and depression tracing back to her younger years.[3][4]

Upon completing her internship at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, Haldar Gummaraju moved to Mumbai to pursue content creation and acting full-time in April 2023.

Career[edit]

Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju is a primary care physician and received her M.B.B.S. degree from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal. She received a government seat in 2015 via the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (CET), wherein her rank was 163.[7] She is reportedly Karnataka’s first transgender doctor.[8][3][9][10][11] After coming out, her content focused on mainstream representation of LGBTQIA+ people and brought awareness around transgender rights.[5] Her work has highlighted the lack of queer-inclusive information in medical education and transphobia in medical curricula and colleges across India.[12][13]

She began her acting career with the Amazon Prime Original - Made in Heaven Season 2, where she played the role of Meher Chaudhry, a wedding planner, becoming the first trans woman to play a main character in an Indian web series.[14]

In 2022, she was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 - India as well as Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia - Media, Marketing & Advertising.[15][8] She was on the Forbes Top 100 Digital Stars Lists in 2022 and 2023.[16] She was enlisted under the GQ 25 Most Influential Young Indians List in 2021[17] and GQ 30 Most Influential Young Indians List in 2022.[18] She has featured on the covers of magazines likes Forbes India, Femina and Elle India.

Activism[edit]

Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju is one of India’s first transgender people to digitally document her medico-socio-legal transition from male to female.[8][19] She extensively documented[3] her surgical processes and recovery on YouTube through a series of vlogs. Her Instagram contains information and timelines of her transition as a reference for younger queer and trans people. Her work has documented the lack of queer-inclusive medical education in India and the state of trans rights in the country.[12] She has conducted many sensitisation and awareness sessions at educational institutions and in corporate settings alike.

Given the lack of queer and trans affirming healthcare in India, Haldar Gummaraju created a crowdsourced list of LGBTQIA+ friendly doctors in India called The Rainbow Pill List, accessible on her Instagram bio. It contains over 200 entries.

In Madras High Court case of S Sushma v. Commissioner of Police, Justice N Anand Venkatesh sought to educate himself on LGBTQIA+ issues.[20] Haldar Gummaraju was among those from the community he consulted to seek information.[21] He stated that Vidya Dinakaran, a psychotherapist, and Haldar Gummaraju became his “gurus” and “pulled (him) out of darkness.”[20][22] In a report filed to the court by Haldar Gummaraju, she elaborated on the need for queer inclusive medical education and for archaic and outdated queerphobic texts to be removed[21][12] and spoke of the rampant practice of conversion therapy, whereby medical practitioners claim and attempt to “cure” LGBTQIA+ identities via unscientific and unethical means. Justice Venkatesh passed a series of orders, eventually directing the National Medical Commission to remove queerphobic information from medical curricula in India and to push for the banning of conversion therapy.[23][24][25] “Medical practitioners who claim to be able to “cure” homosexuality should have their licenses revoked,” he said.[20] The National Medical Commission went on to deem conversion therapy “professional misconduct”[26][27] and constituted a working committee to look into queer inclusive medical education.

Upon being denied a girls’ hostel in college despite having changed her legal documents, Haldar Gummaraju via the Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bengaluru filed a Public Interest Litigation[28] asking the Karnataka High Court to direct public and private institutions to create gender neutral accommodation for trans people, and house according to changed legal documents.

Filmography[edit]

Year Title Role(s) Language(s) Notes Ref.
2023 Made in Heaven Meher Chaudhry Hindi Amazon Prime Video [22]
Rainbow Rishta Herself Hindi/English Amazon Prime Video [29]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Zoya Akhtar's web series Made in Heaven to air on March 8, first look revealed". 17 January 2019.
  2. ^ Entertainment, Quint (8 February 2022). "Dr Trinetra Featured on Forbes India Cover; Adarsh Gourav in '30 Under 30' List". TheQuint.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Meet Trinetra Haldar, Doctor And Actor Winning Hearts As Made In Heaven's Meher". NDTV.com.
  4. ^ a b c "Dr Trinetra Haldar: Transgender Influencer, Forbes 30 Under 30, Acting Debut With 'Made In Heaven 2'". BollywoodShaadis. 12 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b Anil, Aswetha (7 June 2022). "This trans doctor has created a platform for voiceless and queer community". mint.
  6. ^ "'Made in Heaven 2' actress Trinetra on transgender representation: I think it's very..." India Today.
  7. ^ "Trinetra set to be Karnataka's first transwoman medico". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  8. ^ a b c "Dr Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju: Empowering Others To Own Their Story". Forbes India.
  9. ^ "Against All Odds: The Inspirational Journey of Karnataka's First Trans-woman Doctor". India.com. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  10. ^ "Meet Made in Heaven 2's Trinetra Haldar, First Transgender Doctor From Karnataka". TimesNow. 22 August 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  11. ^ "Meet Trinetra Haldar, Karnataka's first trans woman doctor, quit medicine for acting and will star in Made In Heaven 2". www.dnaindia.com. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  12. ^ a b c "Madras HC reaffirms 'queerphobia', calls for revamp of medical education". Hindustan Times. 2 September 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  13. ^ "Dr Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju Creator Stats, Biography | About Dr Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju". Forbes India.
  14. ^ Loganathan, Sonikka (7 August 2023). "Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju interview: On 'Made in Heaven' and representation of trans characters". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  15. ^ "Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju". Forbes.
  16. ^ "Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju Creator Stats, Biography | About Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju". Forbes India. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  17. ^ "Innovators, entertainers, disruptors, game changers: Meet GQ's Most Influential Young Indians". GQ India. 11 February 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  18. ^ "Meet GQ's 30 Most Influential Young Indians of 2022". GQ India. 29 April 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  19. ^ "Meet Trinetra Haldar, Doctor And Actor Winning Hearts As Made In Heaven's Meher". NDTV.com. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  20. ^ a b c "Ignorance Can t Justify Normalising Discrimination : Madras HC Judge on LGBTQIA+ Issues". thewire.in. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  21. ^ a b "Queerphobia among doctors worrying, update courses: Madras high court". The Times of India. 2 September 2021. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  22. ^ a b "All about Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, trans doctor making debut with Made in Heaven season 2 - The Statesman". The Statesman. 3 August 2023.
  23. ^ "Madras high court bans 'cure' for LGBTIQA+ members". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  24. ^ "Treat 'Conversion Therapy' as Professional Misconduct: Madras High Court to NMC". 10 July 2022.
  25. ^ Sajeev, Upasana (10 July 2022). ""Conversion Therapy" For LGBTQ+ Persons Must Be Treated As Professional Misconduct: Madras High Court Directs National Medical Commission". Live Law. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  26. ^ "NMC: Practising conversion therapy is a professional misconduct". Hindustan Times. 5 September 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  27. ^ "'Conversion therapy' for LGBTQ+ people misconduct by doctors: NMC to Madras HC". The Times of India. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  28. ^ Correspondent, Special (24 March 2022). "HC notice to State on PIL seeking separate hostel facility for transgender students". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  29. ^ "'Rainbow Rishta': Prime Video's queer docu-series to premiere on November 7". The Hindu. 30 October 2023. Archived from the original on 3 November 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.

External links[edit]

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