Profile

Kalki Subramaniam at her office — Kalki Subramaniam

Kalki Subramaniam is a celebrated Indian transgender activist, artist, poet, actor and inspirational speaker. Kalki is the founder of Sahodari Foundation, an organization which works for Indian transgender population through its powerful art projects. She was born in Pollachi, a beautiful town in Tamilnadu, India.

Being a champion of transgender rights, Kalki has spoken over to a million students across India and is known for her relentless activism. She was one of the prominent activists who lobbied for the recognition of legal rights for transgender people and had a milestone victory in 2014 when the Supreme court of India finally recognized the transgender community’s civil rights in the country. Kalki has received several awards for her contribution towards transgender rights.

Her collection of poetry in Tamil titled ‘Kuri Aruthean’ was published in 2014. It has been hailed as an outstanding work of poetry. Kalki’s debut in Indian film world happened with ‘Narthaki’, an offbeat film about the life journey of a transsexual woman – her quest for happiness, love and finding her identity and true happiness. She became the first transsexual actor in India to do a lead role in a major motion picture.

She received numerous awards for social work, film performances and her literary contributions. On March 8th, 2015, Facebook chose Kalki as one of the 12 inspiring women of the world who use Facebook as a community development platform for empowerment. In 2016, Kalki was nominated by L’Oreal Paris India as the ‘Woman of Worth’ under the arts category.

As an artist, Kalki’s paintings speak about diversity of humans and and that of nature. Her paintings are vibrant and colorful. She has toured across North America and Europe to speak, to perform and to practice through art and poetry the untold lives of invisible and marginalised transgender people.

As a diversity and inclusion champion, Kalki speaks to sensitize and educate the corporate world through workshops on the inclusion of transgender, gender diverse and non-binary communities in India, Europe, and North America.

Kalki with her artworks — Photo credit: **Anne-Line Siegle**r

Through Sahodari Foundation, she has initiated the powerful RedWall project which is a community art project with participation from more than five hundred transgender and non binary people across India who are victims of sexual and physical abuse due to transgender expressions. The untold stories of the voiceless transgender and non binary people are documented with a red palm impressions of the victim themselves and exhibited across universities, colleges, education institutions, seminars and other public spaces. Kalki performs her poetry in these events.

She also found the TransHearts art project through which she offers free workshops for transgender people and encourages them to express their life stories through art, promotes their artworks and supports their livelihood. More than 200 transgender people have attended the workshops. This entrepreneurship venture is first of its kind in South Asia. The project with a mission to reach out to 10,000 transgender people to encourage and train them to paint their untold stories on canvas.

In February 2017, Kalki Subramaniam was invited by the Harvard University to speak at the India Conference where she received a standing ovation for her speech. She also spoke at University of California during her U.S Visit. In June 2017, Kalki was awarded the honorary doctorate by International Tamil University USA in Madurai.

In 2018, Kalki was invited by Ministry of Global Affairs, Canada to participate at the Global Conference on lgbt human rights and Inclusive development which happened in Vancouver, Canada. She was also felicitated by Canada Tamil Sangam in Toronto. She was honored by MG Motors as one of the finest changemakers of India.

In November 2018, she was invited by Schwules Museum, Germany to present her poetry, art and activism to special audience. In June 2019, she was invited by Soundstone Artist Hannes Fessmann in Germany and by TransAmsterdam organisation, Netherlands. Her art exhibition titled ‘Maya by Kalki’ was opened at The Manor Hotel in Amsterdam. Kalki was also conferred the International Ambassador for TransAmsterdam organisation.