The Tamil Nadu Government has, for the first time, appointed a transgender woman as school noon meal organiser. This comes within weeks of the Government’s decision to appoint K. Prithika Yashini, the country’s first transgender police officer in Salem district.

23-year-old Jaya, from Sirunathur Taluk, was given the employment orders by the Thiruvannamalai district collector A. Gnanasekaran. She will begin working at the Government Primary School in Erappakkam village in the district.

Jaya was born as Jayaprakash, and was abandoned by the family when they noticed his abnormal behaviours during his second year in college. She was doing her B.A. History in the Government Arts College in Thiruvannamalai then. “I was discarded by my family few years back when they saw me behaving as a woman,” she said.

She ran away to Bengaluru. Frustrated at not finding a job with her Class XII qualifications, she returned to Thiruvannamalai. Her friends encouraged her to apply for the noon meal centre’s organiser post.