India, Oct. 3 -- Once disowned by her family, Sonalee Chaukekar, 35, spent a month not just begging but living on Mumbai's local trains. "I would sleep in the train, use public toilets to clean up, and ask someone for a vada pav whenever I got hungry. I had to forget about clean clothes and my mother's cooking," said Chaukekar.

She now works in the front office of a private firm in a swanky building in Malad. With her appointment as co-chairperson of the Transgender Persons Protection of Rights and Welfare Board for the Konkan Division on Tuesday, Chaukekar hopes that transgender persons abandoned by their own will have a forum to approach.

Chaukekar, one of two trans women appointed to the board, is aware that her experience will reson...