Chennai, Dec 25 : The Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative and Voluntary Health Services (TAI-VHS) brought about 20,000 transgenders and marginalized women together to showcased their talents.

The transgenders had recently showcased their talents by performing Bharatanatyam and folk dances.

The newly formed federation aims at empowering their community and making them self-reliant in the society.

"Most of them suffer due to low socio-economic status and are of vulnerable. Our federation is going to take up those issues. First focus will be on socio-economic empowerment. So when we address socio economic empowerment, automatically disease prevention is taken care of. Next we will address vulnerability. They should start knowing about their basic rights," said R. Laxmi Bai, Project Director, Tamil Nadu Aids Initiative And Voluntary Health Service.

The transgenders and the marginalized women from 14 districts participated to mark the launch of the federation.

"So far we have not established our inherent talents because no one had encouraged us, but TAI had helped us to prove ourselves by exploring our talents and made us feel proud. So we are very happy and thankful to them," said Puja, a transgender.

The federation would not only lay stress on health services by opening more community clinics but would also help members cope with violence from within the community, educate their children, provide skill-based training and loans to encourage micro-entrepreneurship, provide legal services. (ANI)