The Bangladesh’s first transgender news anchor, Tashnuva Anan Shishir read three-minute daily news bulletin for a private television channel on International Women’s Day.
According to Boishakhi TV’s chief editor, Tipu Alam, said Anan has been the first transgender television newsreader in South Asia.
Tipu Alam said, “I hope that this will bring greater acceptance and change in the way people view the transgender community.”
Moreover, Tashnuva Anan Shishir believed that this step could be revolutionary and create a new dimension in people’s thinking.
Shishir has received several weeks of intensive training at Boishakhi TV after being selected for the job in auditions and the initiative was taken on account of International Women’s Day to try to refrain people from being against the transgender community.
Even after having continuous training, I was shaking inside, said Tashnuva.
The spokesman for Boishakhi TV, Julfikar Ali Manik said “the channel was determined to give Shishir a chance to shine despite the risk of backlash from some viewers in the Muslim-majority country”.
Kamal Hossain Shishir aka Tashnuva Anan Shishir has master’s degree in public health, she was in her teens when she discovered that she was not a male but trapped in man’s body.
After being a victim of severe bully, she left her home and moved to Dhaka and worked for charities and theater and went through a hormone therapy.