Bollywood Representation of Transgender Community: An overview of handling Gender, Visibility, and Cultural Politics in Hindi Films

Gagan Gera; Harsh Bala Sharma

Bollywood Representation of Transgender Community: An overview of handling Gender, Visibility, and Cultural Politics in Hindi Films

Author(s)	Dr. Gagan Gera, Dr. Harsh Bala Sharma
Country	India
Abstract	Hindi films have made public perceptions of gender, sexuality, and social identity for many years. Portrayal of transgender populations has changed through time, and moved from marginalization to more sympathetic presentations in modern films. Through a cultural and theoretical analysis of a few films, such as Tamanna, Darmiyaan: In Between, Shabnam Mausi and many more.This Paper critically analyzes how transgender identities are presented in Hindi cinema. Taali, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui etc. The Paper examines how Bollywood handles gender questions, social hierarchy, picturisation and conditional acceptance within prevailing cinematic frameworks, through Stuart Hall's idea of representation and Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity. The study shows that despite contemporary Hindi films' shift towards inclusive narratives, heteronormative narratives and cisgender point of view continues to influence the presentation of transgender identity. These people were often portrayed in earlier movies as comic sketches, audience, villain, or tragic, which again enforced the idea of social prejudice and treating them as others. Though modern movies are making an effort to portray the human face of transgender lives by focusing on love relations, emotional side, and fights for societal inclusivity and dignity. However, the structural pattern of mainstream Bollywood presented by the continued use of stereotyped characters and non-acceptance of transgender actors for pivotal roles shows the multifaceted reality of Hindi and regional Cinema. The idea in this paper emphasizes on the complex relation between Cinema, Gender politics and public perception in India by analyzing the representation in cinema within the social-historical and cultural system. The paper argues the effective representation is necessary in films for any movement to be heard and seen properly. For any authentic integration, change of narrative is necessary and new-era movies are contributing in this sector effectively.
Keywords	Transgender Representation, Bollywood Cinema, Gender Representation, Inclusivity, Hindi Cinema, LGBTQIA+, Cultural Hierarchy, Representation of Queer.
Field	Arts > Movies / Music / TV
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 3, May-June 2026
Published On	2026-06-04

View / Download PDF File

About IJFMR Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Publication Ethics Peer Review & Plagiarism	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Reviewer Referral Program Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us		+91-9687-828-838	editor@ijfmr.com

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Bollywood Representation of Transgender Community: An overview of handling Gender, Visibility, and Cultural Politics in Hindi Films

Share this