By Kirti Rawat
On 06 November, Kashmir woke up to the shocking news of famous transgender Reshma's death. Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Reshma was battling with cancer and passed away at a hospital in Srinagar. People from Kashmir paid her last rites. It was for the first time that thousands of people joined the funeral of a transgender in the valley. With a total population of 4,000 transgender community lives in anxiety, depression and fear, with many of them are being constantly harassed and threatened on the streets. The marginalized community of the valley depends largely on arranging marriages (locally known as mazemyaraz), and singing and dancing at occasions, for their livelihood. However, Rashid changed the perspective of the people and developed a deep sense of respect for her tribe among the people, especially on social media. It was actually her song that she sang at a wedding—which took the internet by storm in 2018. After that people used to invite her to their weddings often and the singer became a regular feature in Kashmiri weddings as well as video projects. BOOM spoke to Reshma's friends, colleagues and some trans activists in the valley to understand how she became so popular, what she meant for the trans community in Kashmir.
