Akkai Padmashali

Author | Trans rights activist | Singer

About: Akkai Padmashali is a trans rights activist, motivational speaker, singer, and recipient of the Rajyotsava Prashasti, the second-highest civilian distinction of the Karnataka state. Akkai asserts that her story is not just her story, and addresses gender and sexuality as ‘a journey we all travel’- one that connects our personal and political lives, and one that helps us face difficult, disturbing questions about prejudice and privilege.

BOOK

Name: A Small Step In A Long Journey: A Memoir By Akkai Padmashali

Description:

More than just an autobiography or memoir, this is a powerful and passionate account of one woman’s battle to claim her identity and place in society. In A Small Step in a Long Journey, Akkai Padmashali, a trans rights activist and campaigner, thinker, writer, poet, and actor, throws out a challenge to society, demanding not sympathy or pity but acceptance, recognition, and respect. Brutally honest and self-critical, Akkai’s writing is a political act in which she lays bare the hurt, humiliation, confusion, insult, love, solidarity and joy that went into making her who she is today.

Time and again Akkai asserts that her story is not just her story. What we call gender and sexuality, she says, ‘is a journey we all travel’, one that connects our personal and political lives, and one that helps us to face difficult, disturbing questions about prejudice and privilege.