Navya Singh never wanted to be a headline. She wanted to live a life where her identity wasn’t questioned, where her body wasn’t fetishized, where love wasn’t conditional. But the moment she decided to live her truth—to become herself—she unknowingly stepped into a world that would test every inch of her spirit.

“I lost everything,” she says, voice steady, eyes unwavering. “My family, my partner, my safety. But I didn’t lose me. That’s what they can never take.”

Navya was born in Bihar, in a conservative household that didn’t even allow mirrors in the girls’ room. As a child, she would dance in secret, wrap sarees when no one was watching, and wish, silently, for the day she could stop pretending. That day came—but at a cost.

When she began her gender transition, she wasn’t met with understanding. She was met with rage.

“My father didn’t say a word. He just stopped looking at me. My mother cried for days but never held me again. My brother told me I was dead to him.”

So, she ran. To Mumbai. To freedom. Or so she thought.

At first, things seemed possible. She joined modeling contests, caught the eye of photographers, and began climbing the ranks as a transgender model in a city known for swallowing people whole. But the higher she climbed, the dirtier the messages became.

“You’d be shocked at who slid into my DMs,” she says with a bitter smile. “Famous cricketers, popular TV actors, influencers with millions of followers. They didn’t want to know my story. They wanted to see my body. And the moment I set boundaries, they disappeared—or worse, they mocked me.”

She shows the screenshots—blurred names, vulgar words, late-night messages asking for photos, promises of roles in exchange for silence. But she never played along.

“I didn’t escape one cage to build another,” she says.

And yet, even in Mumbai, even in so-called liberal circles, she found herself isolated.

“I was too woman to be treated like a man, and too trans to be treated like a woman. I was a fetish, a secret, a punchline.”

Still, she found love—or something that looked like it.

He was older, kind at first, curious about her past but respectful. They dated for over a year, and Navya thought, finally, someone saw her beyond the layers. But as always, the illusion shattered.

“He told me he couldn’t introduce me to his family. That his reputation was at stake. That loving me had to be ‘discreet.’”

When she pushed back, he left. No goodbye. No explanation.

“I stared at my phone for days. Hoping he’d say sorry. Hoping he’d lie, even. But silence was louder than any truth.”

And so, she poured herself into activism, into speaking out, into fighting not just for herself but for others like her. At protests, on panels, in front of school children and CEOs, she became a voice. But even that came with consequences.

“Once I started naming names, the threats came. Calls from blocked numbers. Men telling me to shut up or disappear. But I’m done being afraid.”

Her voice cracks for the first time when she speaks of her mother.

“I sent her a photo of me in a saree recently. I looked beautiful, I know I did. I just wanted her to see me. She replied: ‘Please don’t message again.’”

There’s a pause. Then she adds, almost in a whisper: “It’s strange how the world applauds you, but the one hug you need never comes.”

But this is not a story of defeat.

Today, Navya is building a foundation to support young trans individuals who are kicked out of their homes. She’s launching a podcast that will name and shame powerful predators in the industry. And she’s working on her memoir—Not Born Wrong.

“I’m not here to be your inspiration. I’m here because I refused to die in silence,” she says.

Her strength is not loud. It’s the kind that burns slowly, refuses to go out, and lights the way for others who’ve been told they’re “too much,” “too different,” or simply “not enough.”

“They tried to break me,” she says, looking straight into the camera. “But the truth is—I was never theirs to break.”