Former President Barack Obama has given a transgender activist in India an inspiring message of hope, after she asked him how she could find acceptance for her gender identity.
Last week, Obama hosted a town hall-style meeting in New Delhi, India, part of an Obama Foundation talk about activism and being an active citizen.
Akkai Padmashali asked Obama how she could find acceptance after facing discrimination and stigma.
“I was a sex worker, I was a beggar, I was rejected by all sections of society,” she said, before asking Obama, “How can I speak up in front of a society when I am a criminal under Section 377, which criminalizes you as a transgender, gay, lesbian, or bisexual? How do I raise [my] voice against this?”
Obama responded by telling Padmashali that she had already taken the first step by speaking out about it.
“It begins with what you just did,” Obama said, “which is to find your voice and to be able to articulate your views and your experiences and tell your story. And that’s true of any group that is marginalized, stigmatized. Finding that voice and being able to tell a story so that the perceptions that somehow you are different are broken down, because people start recognizing their own experiences in you — they see your humanity.”
Obama told Padmashali that by sharing her experiences, Padmashali could motivate others to do the same.
“Once that voice is there, hopefully others join you. And so now you have networks and organizations and allies,” Obama said.
He noted that it can be easy to become discouraged by incremental change, but that activists should take “some measure of hope” by looking at the advancement of LGBTQ rights in the United States and other countries.
“When I was in college, this would be back in the early ’80s, it was just beginning for persons who were openly gay or lesbian to have student organizations,” he said. “The laws on the books were still discriminatory across many states in the United States. Now there is just an open acknowledgement, even among many conservative parties, that we should not be discriminating agaisnt persons because of sexual orientation.
“And that happened, with respect to human history, amazingly quickly,” he continued. “In the span of 20 years basically. Now, in the span of one person’s lifetime, that can seem painfully long, but it requires a steady education of the public, and then a political strategy that puts pressure on elected officials. And that’s going to take some time.”
Akkai Padmashali, Credit: taalk com / YouTube
Padmashali, whose organization Ondede focuses on awareness of LGBTQ rights and people, told India’s The News Minute prior to the event that she wanted to use her opportunity to focus on the LGBTQ community.
She also noted the difference between Obama’s presidency and that of his successor, who has made attacking LGBTQ rights a core part of his first year in office.
“In the present situation in India and the United States, we don’t see an enabled environment where people have the right to expression, right to identity, right to privacy, all the fundamental, civil and human rights guaranteed to us,” she said. “We are not following that now.”
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The 41-year-old former center earned All-American honors at Stanford before being drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2001. Over his 13-year career, he played for several NBA teams, including the New Jersey Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, and Brooklyn Nets.
Reports that the person who fatally shot conservative activist Charlie Kirk had left behind bullet casings engraved with phrases espousing "transgender ideology" have been debunked.
The rumor spread quickly after conservative commentator Steven Crowder posted to X on the morning of September 11 -- the day after the shooting -- claiming he had received an email from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives officer describing such engravings.
Crowder shared what he said was an email from an ATF officer claiming investigators had recovered the weapon used in Kirk's killing, with one spent cartridge in the chamber and three rounds still in the magazine. The email further alleged the cartridges were engraved with "transgender and anti-fascist ideology."
Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer with close ties to President Donald Trump, claimed during a deposition in her defamation lawsuit against HBO that sources close to the former president told her U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is gay.
Loomer is suing the network over comments by comedian Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher, who joked that she had an affair with Trump. She alleges Maher's on-air remark about her "sleeping with Trump" -- echoing a rumor circulating at the time -- cost her a job in the Trump administration and the political influence that would have come with it. HBO has argued that Maher's comment is protected under the First Amendment, just as Loomer's own inflammatory remarks are shielded when she targets her political enemies.
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