A young man named Bidhan Barua sought the Bombay High Court’s intervention in undergoing a sex change surgery in 2012, amid his parent’s disapproval.
Barua has now changed his name to Swati and is married to Rinku Talukdar, an engineering student from Assam. The surgery was done in a private clinic at Guwahati in 2013.
Supti Ranjan Barua and mother Shukla Barua, who were against Bidhan’s attempts to alter his gender, now accept him as a woman.
“He is my child. What do I do but welcome his decision?” Shukla told Mumbai Mirror . “We want her to succeed in life.”
But Swati’s transformation has not been completed yet. The sex-change surgery to alter her genitalia, or vaginoplasty was done in 2013 and she is looking forward to seek medical help for breast implantation and augmentation after completion of her education, in 2017.
The Supreme Court of India had declared the LGBT community illegitimate by upholding Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalises same sex coupling , back in 2013. This hastened her family’s acceptance of their son’s sexuality. The Baruas became aware of the discourse around gender reassignment and queer rights. “We accepted her for who she is,” Swati’s mother Shukla said.
After her transformation into becoming Swati, she met Rinku Talukdar, from Chamata village in Nalbari in Assam, on Facebook. “We exchanged mobile numbers and started meeting each other,” Swati said.
The marriage took place in the month of March 2015.