New Delhi: Urooz Hussain is a trans woman who is challenging the stereotyping of her community people by taking brave steps and that too without getting unfazed by the scathing bullies and taunts. She stood firm and took her own decisions to take the challenges head on. She wasn't someone who would walk into oblivion, rather she developed her own restaurant to lead a respected life and also show the way to the transgender community.
27-year-old Urooz Hussain runs her restaurant 'Street Temptations' at Sector 119 in Noida. She hails from Munger district in Bihar. She is also a social worker, model and an entrepreneur. She believes that her decision to run a restaurant will inspire others from her community as well.
On November 21, 2019, Urooz opened her restaurant in Noida. It was not a simple journey since nobody was ready to give retail space to a trans woman. Urooz spent about Rs 7 lakh on the restaurant. The restaurant started doing well in 2019 but when the pandemic struck in 2020, everything halted.
The restaurant has seven staff who have been getting their salaries all throughout the lockdown period. According to Hussain, trans women normally open salons and boutiques but she wanted to break that mould and wanted to do something different.
Besides being an entrepreneur, Hussain is also co-founder of 'I Love Noida', . Recently, she also won Australia's beauty pageant for transgenders.
She said, “Pre-Covid, I had two trans women working at the restaurant, but they unfortunately had to go back home during the lockdown. Now, I am actively looking to hire people from the trans community.”
She continued, “Unfortunately, it’s been a tough year for all of us. I had to deal not only with this pandemic but also the judgements that came my way because of being a trans woman.”
In school, the majority of Hussain’s friends were all girls and she says that most of the conversation used to be about makeup. She said, “One of my happy memories from my school days was applying lipstick but I am very scared about how I confess my feelings to my parents.”
She said that her childhood was never a happy one, it was dark. She also shared about how difficult it was for her mother to support openly because her mother had a fear that Hussain’s father would not accept this.
Hussain added that it was tough for her to complete school and she left for Delhi for further studies because she was always taunted and bullied for her behavior.
When she was pursuing her Hospitality Management course in Delhi, again she was harassed by her classmates in college. Hussain decided to undergo a sex-change operation and from there, her journey to collect funds began.
Hussain said, “The entire process of the operation took more than one year and I used all of my savings from the time of intern.” The entire transition took almost one year and according to Hussain, the medication cost for her treatment was almost Rs 4,000 per month.
During the transition phase, Hussain stayed almost in isolation because of all the changes that she was physically going through. In Delhi, Hussain met people like herself. Once the transition was completely done, Hussain started thinking of ways in which she could give back and do something for her trans community.
On March 5, 2021, she will celebrate her 28th birthday. CitySpidey team wishes Urooz Hussain a happy birthday in advance.
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