By Aquib Javeed, Umer Asif
On 6 November, Kashmir woke up to the news of the death of its transgender icon, Reshma. Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Reshma was battling with cancer and passed away at a hospital in Srinagar.
It was for the first time that thousands of people joined the funeral of a transgender person in the Valley.
With a population of 4,000 transgender people, the community lives in anxiety, depression, and fear. Many of them face harassment and threats in their daily lives. The marginalized community of the Valley depend largely on arranging marriages (locally known as
mazemyaraz
), and singing and dancing on occasions, for their livelihood. Reshma had, however, changed the perspective of the people. She was celebrated, on social media. It was her song that she sang at a wedding—which took the internet by a storm in 2018. She would often get invitations to sing at weddings. She started making her own music videos and sharing them on YouTube. BOOM spoke to Reshma's friends, colleagues and LGBT activists in Kashmir to understand how she became so popular, and what she meant for the trans community in Kashmir.
