PHOTO ESSAY: A symbolic marriage ritual and beauty pageant brings India’s trans community together

KOOVAGAM, India (AP) — Under stage lights, hundreds of transgender women adjusted their sarees, tucked flowers into their hair, and waited to be called onstage. One by one, they waved to cheering crowds and struck poses at one of India’s largest gatherings for the transgender community.

Held each year in Koovagam village in southern India’s Tamil Nadu, the annual Koovagam festival brings faith and beauty together. By day, transgender women gather at a temple to honor a Hindu deity through rituals rooted in mythology and grief. By night, they celebrate glamour, identity, and joy as they take part in a vibrant beauty pageant.

The festival centers on the Hindu legend of Aravan, a warrior from the Hindu epic Mahabharata who agreed to sacrifice himself before battle but wished to marry first. According to the story, the Hindu god Krishna transformed into a female form to wed Aravan. Many transgender women in India see the tale as a rare sacred recognition of gender fluidity, and each year reenact the marriage during the festival.

The celebration, which drew hundreds of transgender women last month, has become both a sacred pilgrimage and a powerful expression of identity in a country where many transgender people still face discrimination, violence and exclusion.

It also unfolded under a cloud of anxiety for the transgender community. Many attendees arrived amid growing concern over a controversial national bill that activists warn could erode hard-won rights for India’s transgender community by requiring medical-board approval for legal gender recognition.

For many participants, the festival was deeply spiritual.

Shanshi, who goes by just one name, has been attending the festival for five years and described Aravan as “God for all transgender people.”

“When we gather here, it is for one reason — to worship Lord Aravan by getting married to him,” she said, after a Hindu priest tied a sacred thread around her neck, symbolically marrying her to the deity.

Others spoke of violence and hardship beyond the festival grounds.

Nazariya Kutty, 28, said she was forced out of her family home as a teenager and later survived domestic abuse and sexual assault in a marriage she hoped would bring stability. She rebuilt her life through delivery jobs before reopening her travel business.

Now back at Koovagam with friends, she said the rituals give her strength.

“I am waiting to be the bride of Lord Aravan,” Kutty said. “I have faith he will restore whatever I have lost.”

Amid the festival’s spiritual fervor, the atmosphere remained celebratory. The village of Koovagam also transformed into a vibrant beauty pageant, where glamour and community took center stage.

Backstage at this year’s beauty pageant, contestants in shimmering sarees shared mirrors and makeup brushes before stepping onto the stage as music echoed through the village.

For 24-year-old Surya Kutty, winning the Miss Koovagam crown marked a personal turning point after years of returning to the festival with close friends.

“This win has given me the confidence to participate in national and international events,” she said.

Beyond the pageantry and rituals, many attendees described the gathering as a rare space of belonging for a community that continues to face barriers to jobs, housing and healthcare across India.

Surya said the festival creates a rare sense of belonging.

“Here we meet other transgender people and feel loved and cared by everyone,” she said. “These are special days meant exclusively for us.”

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Saaliq reported from New Delhi.

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This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.