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Floods are a fact of life in the northeast Indian state of Assam. But Panash Gogoi, 26, who has spent his entire life in the state, had never seen one as bad as the one that struck on July 19. That afternoon, an embankment on the Darika River broke after several days of relentless rains and water engulfed his village, Nowjan, he said.

“Water entered my home, all our homes; it was like nothing we had ever seen before,” said Panash. He recalled everyone rushing out of their homes and gathering at the nearby highway, which offered higher ground away from the overflowing river.

“I quickly started getting looks,” said Panash, a trans man who works as an actor in community theatre. “This is a time when people come together and start helping each other. I also wanted to help. But most people did not seem to want me there,” he added.

Like Panash, Priya Basfor, a 30-year-old Hijra guru, had a similar experience. She lives in a makeshift home by the train tracks in Amguri with her 12 chelas (disciples). When the floodwaters rose, they took shelter at the nearby train station, where they felt unwelcome. “Many people were taking shelter at the station and we could tell that people didn’t want us there, but the station is our home, no one can ask us to leave here,” she said.

Nearly 1.4 lakh people have been affected by the floods this year, according to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA). More than 100 people have lost their lives – around half of those from Sivasagar, the same district Priya and Panash live in – and thousands have been forced to evacuate to relief camps.

While both governmental and non-governmental organisations have been working to deliver aid to those in need, LGBTQIA rights organisations are finding that trans people in the worst-hit areas have been left out by the relief operations.

“A flood is something that impacts everyone equally; it doesn’t discriminate,” said Rituparna Neog, trans woman and founder of Akam Foundation, a trans and queer rights NGO based in Dibrugarh. “However, in the past, flooding has mostly been limited to more rural areas; it is now expanding to peri-urban areas where trans people are more visible and hence more vulnerable to discrimination or being left out of relief drives.”

Akam’s team called up dozens of queer and trans folks across the affected areas and identified 130 people in need of aid. They have delivered aid to 30 of them so far, and are aiming to reach 100 more this month, Rituparna said.

Mridul Yadav, District Commissioner of Sivasagar, denied that anyone was being discriminated against while distributing aid. “We have already distributed aid to about 1.5 lakh families, and we only have a list of about 100 transgenders with us. We are not distributing aid category-wise, but anyone who hasn’t gotten aid I’m sure will get it soon because we want to make sure it gets to the most........

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