In Delhi, a Beauty Salon Acts As a Safe Haven for Trans People

NEW DELHI — Last September, as India braced itself for another deadly Covid-19 wave amid the upcoming festival season, “La Beauté & Style salon” — the country’s first-ever salon run and managed by trans men — quietly opened its doors in the heart of a bustling market in Ghaziabad, in the capital of New Delhi.

From the outside, the salon looks like any other, but inside, clients pose in front of its rainbow-colored walls, particularly the one at the reception. The salon’s proud owner, Aryan Pasha, 30 — a lawyer, activist, and India’s first trans man bodybuilder — greets clients with refreshments after staff have taken their temperatures.

India’s LGBTQ+ community has been targeted and alienated since the colonial era. And while the rights of trans people received legal recognition in 2014 after the Supreme Court of India ruling in National Legal Services Authority of India (NALSA) v. Union of India, homosexuality still wasn’t decriminalized in the country until 2018, and to this day, violence, discrimination, disenfranchisement, and ostracization remain commonplace.

Trans Indians are often denied access to numerous social security benefits due to a lack of identity cards in their preferred names and gender identities. Most official data sources continue to collect and distribute data in a binary format — including when it comes to recording gender.

In 2019, a law purportedly intended to prohibit discrimination against trans people— known as the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill — sparked outrage for requiring trans people to register with the government if they wanted to be officially recognized as trans (a right already guaranteed under law by the 2014 high court ruling), and to submit proof of gender confirmation surgery to the government in order to do so.

The pandemic only exacerbated longstanding discrimination against the community — the trans community in particular — with government schemes to help citizens stay afloat during lockdown leaving them out almost entirely. Despite a population of 4.8 million, there’s no telling how many have been vaccinated against Covid-19, as the government doesn’t count them on its CoWin platform, which tracks the country’s vaccination progress. And barely a thousand trans people have received ration supplies as part of the country’s Covid relief, by official counts.

“When people were helping each other with whatever resource they had, people from our community were mostly sidelined,” said Pasha, drinking his usual green tea and surveying the salon. He and his friends organized food drives and financial assistance to assist the trans community during the pandemic, and opened the salon to create a safe haven “where people don’t see us like aliens or bad omens but like normal human beings.” The salon, Pasha says, is open to everyone irrespective of any gender.

Pasha founded La Beauté & Style with the help of his partner, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, 43 — a renowned transgender activist in India — with the aim to provide respectable employment and training for his people. “It gives me inner peace when I see people from my community get equal respect at this place,” he said, and dreams of opening more salons throughout the country.

The salon now employs six staff, all of whom receive training in Mumbai before starting at the salon. Pasha says the goal, in fact, is for them to move on to better opportunities, or to start their own businesses after leaving La Beauté & Style. “That’s why I get them trained from the best possible places in Mumbai,” he said. “It will be a victory for me.”

“They have made compromises all their lives but not anymore,” said Pasha.

At 22, Manu is the youngest staff member at the salon. He transitioned two years ago and says he was mocked and harassed in prior workplaces. “There were people who used to constantly ask me, ‘Why do you behave like a man?’ They said,‘You are a woman; behave like one.’” But after meeting Pasha, he says, “I don’t hide anymore from people.” Now, he’s considered to be the most social among Pasha’s staff.

Bhanu, 24, another staff member, had relocated from six different localities and quit multiple jobs because of harassment and discrimination due to his identity. He describes his discomfort in not being allowed to be himself in those workplaces, but, he says, “I never gave up.” He considers joining La Beauté & Style salon a gift from God as a reward for his suffering.

The salon’s customers come from different corners of Delhi to enjoy its services. Puneet, one of the customers at the salon, traveled for over an hour that day — his second time — to get his hair and facial treatment.

“It’s not like there is something special [here that I] won’t be able to get at any other salon,” he says, “but my experience here is enriching. There are stereotypes about this community, but when I stepped in, my entire perspective towards this salon changed. In the end, we are all children of God and I want them to flourish like this rainbow,” he said, pointing to the colorful wall.