Over the last two years, the photographer Jitendra Jerry joined thousands of others in the village of Koovagam in Tamil Nadu, southern India, to celebrate the annual Koovagam Festival. Taking place across 18 days under the sweltering April sun, the festival commemorates the myth of Aravan. Appearing in the Mahabharata, an ancient Hindu epic, the story recounts how Aravan agrees to sacrifice himself to the goddess Kali, asking only to be married first. But when no bride comes forward, the Hindu god Krishna assumes the female form of Mohini to fulfil his final wish and then mourn him as a widow the following morning. Each year, trans women gather at the Koothandavar Temple in their finest silks to embody this cycle of devotion and loss, marrying Aravan one night before ritually mourning him the next, perhaps finding in the myth a reflection of their own gender fluidity and faith. 

This recreation is, however, not why Jerry is drawn to the festival, nor is it the central focus of their new photo book, God Is Trans, published by Deep State Press. Despite the book’s title, which pays homage to the spiritual lineage of trans people in India, the photographer consciously skims over the festival’s religious and political aspects. Instead, Jerry is much more interested in the interior lives of the trans and non-binary people attending Koovagam and how this interiority is expressed through their style. “When I travelled to the festival two years ago, I saw a lot of trans girls dressing up in really cool, unique outfits. Some girls were inspired by Tamil film heroines or goddesses, but everyone had their own personal style. They were all baddies,” Jerry tells Dazed. “Other photographers have explored the religious significance of the festival, but I wanted to document joy and those moments of self-expression.”

Shot entirely on film, Jerry’s photographs are attentive to the minutiae of how people adorn themselves: there are images of attendees decorated in gold jewellery, pairing traditional saris with Louis Vuitton handbags or with jasmine braided into their hair. The ritual of getting ready together is also documented in the book, appearing in one of its first photographs: a full-bleed image of a group of trans women lounging together on the grass while one girl holds up a mirror and carefully fills in her eyebrows. Dressing to impress is, after all, ingrained into the festival, which, alongside performing rituals of matrimony and mourning, includes the titular Miss Koovagam beauty pageant. “For a trans girl who is still transitioning or has just transitioned, participating in the pageant is a real moment of joy and acceptance,” they explain. 

This focus on self-fashioning underscores much of their practice, including an ongoing project titled Who Am I?!, in which the photographer creates portraits of young queer people living in urban India. “In my opinion, a lot of Western photographers who come to India and document queerness here are searching for difference. They like finding people who are more androgynous in their presentation or are fascinated by a certain kind of ugliness,” explains Jerry. This facet of gender expression is important, they say, but searching it out and photographing it to the exclusion of any other risks flattening how a global audience understands queerness in India. “I hang out with these communities and am part of these spaces, so I feel the need to showcase how beautiful and multi-faceted these women are.”

Speaking to Jerry, it becomes clear that they too became immersed in the celebrations at Koovagam. They share anecdotes of dancing into the night with the girls and collecting their phone numbers and Instagram handles to share photographs later. This camaraderie is present in the images, where everyone is dancing and laughing freely despite the presence of a camera. “Trans girls love to have fun. They love to dance. They love to get drunk, be themselves and to be seen,” Jerry shared. “Even on the last day of the festival when they are in mourning, wearing white saris and crying to mark the death of their imaginary husband, they find it all so funny. They love this performance, and it’s not always sentimental for them. I wanted to make sure that playfulness was highlighted in my photographs.”

God Is Trans by Jitendra Jerry is published by Hamza Ashraf and Deep State Press and is available here. The launch is accompanied by an exhibition at the Leeds-based gallery and bookshop, Village, until the 30th of August.