By Sharanya Gopinathan
Bangladesh, like India, legally recognises people of the “third gender”, and they have since 2014. And just like in India, transgender people in Bangladesh face discrimination on the daily, although if this new social experiment is to be believed (and we always do take social experiments with a tiny pinch of salt) that might be changing, slowly but surely.
Robi Axiata Limited, a telecommunications company, recently released a video of a social experiment. The video depicts what happens when two transgender women sit down to eat iftar at a restaurant, and seem to face opposition from the restaurant management and other customers. It’s been shared over 58,000 times at the time of writing.
It honestly is pretty heart-warming to see so many people, across genders and age groups, rush to their defence. In the beginning, I didn’t realise that one of the angry customers was in on the experiment, which is why I found it doubly hilarious when he angrily said that “he had issues” when he was asked why he wanted the two people to leave the restaurant.
You can watch the viral video here.