About

Overview

Suggested dropdowns: Mission & Vision | Values | Team Notes | Networks & Solidarity

About Krishnachura

Krishnachura: A Center for Gender Minorities Rights is a trans-led, trans feminist collective and think tank based in Bangladesh.

We work exclusively with non-cis communities: transgender, hijra, intersex, non-binary, and gender-diverse people, particularly those living at the intersections of poverty, rural marginalization, disability, stigma, and violence.

Krishnachura is justice-driven, not charity-driven.

We are not here to make gender minorities visible only as victims. We are here to build knowledge, institutions, art, dignity, leadership, protection, and future.

Mission

To empower gender minorities in Bangladesh through community protection, inclusive healthcare, rights advocacy, economic dignity, cultural production, and knowledge creation.

Vision

A Bangladesh where gender minorities are recognized, protected, valued, and able to live without fear; where our lives are not treated as exceptions, but as part of the nation’s collective future.

Values

Dignity is non-negotiable
We refuse any system that treats gender minorities as less than human.

Community-led knowledge
Those who live the reality must lead the analysis.

Care as political practice
Care is not weakness. Care is infrastructure.

Evidence rooted in lived experience
Our research begins with life, memory, body, and survival.

Art as resistance
We use culture, image, textile, performance, and storytelling to challenge erasure.

Intersectionality and inclusion
We center class, rural realities, disability, sex work, caste-like exclusion, and social marginalization.

Sex work is work
Krishnachura believes that sex work is work. We support the dignity, safety, labor rights, bodily autonomy, and protection of THINQ community members who are sex workers. We reject stigma, criminalization, and violence against sex workers.

Courage with accountability
We resist, but we also build responsibly.

Founder & Chairperson’s Note

Krishnachura is not an institution I founded from comfort.

It was born from risk, exhaustion, silence, rage, love, and the refusal to disappear.

As a transgender and queer person, a public health professional, and a human rights defender, I have learned that survival alone is not enough. We must archive, theorize, create, organize, protect, and build-even when the world is hostile.

Krishnachura is my promise to my community: that our lives will not be reduced to footnotes, case studies, or charity stories.

We are history.
We are knowledge.
We are culture.
We are future.

Executive Director’s Note

Krishnachura is more than an organization to me. It is a commitment to dignity, opportunity, and inclusion for gender minorities.

We work to amplify voices, create opportunities, and build a future where our community can thrive without discrimination.

We are not defined by our struggles.
We are leaders.
We are dreamers.
We are changemakers.

Treasurer’s Note

I believe meaningful change begins with accountability, trust, and community.

As Treasurer of Krishnachura, my role is to help strengthen transparency, financial responsibility, and sustainability within our collective work.

Through both teaching and community engagement, I have learned that inclusive development requires not only emotion and courage, but also structure, discipline, and accountability.

Every resource entrusted to Krishnachura is a responsibility toward building a more just and safe future for gender minorities in Bangladesh.

Secretary’s Note

I dream of a society built on equality, where gender discrimination is dismantled and every individual has the freedom to exist without fear or bias.

Krishnachura was created to provide a platform, a voice, and a community for gender minorities whose stories deserve to be heard.

As a queer filmmaker and movement worker, I believe storytelling is not only art. It is resistance. It is memory. It is survival.

Through Krishnachura, we want to speak, document, create, and fight against inequality.