Midnight Conversations (#wattys2016)

Thank You

As a child, I was very confused as to why the Trans community wasn't given the same amount of respect as compared to people without any gender identity issues. I remember being eight when I first asked my parents about transgenders and transvestites. They weren't really hesitant on telling me the facts, considering my age. After being told about the basic psychology and the (post-op) anatomy, I just couldn't understand what was wrong if someone wanted to change their gender identity. As years passed by, I did my research on various websites to know more about them. In that process, I did stumble upon some transphobic people who claimed that it was a sin as they were going against the decision of God or going through a rebel phase or yet, trying to come across as 'someone special' to stand out. These claims were very easily handed out by them; as if transitioning oneself was a very casual choice for transgenders. But what people have to learn and try to understand is that gender is a spectrum, just like your sexual orientation. It does not comprise of just two genders. I do not entirely hate transphobic people because it is but natural that when confronted with a very new (ethical) fact, humans have the tendency to revolt as everyone fears change. But yet again, it is no excuse to interfere with their human rights. Anyway, that being said, by the age of fourteen – I had read quite a lot about the LGBTQIA community. I would even watch Youtubers who had been through a complete gender reassignment surgery. Fast forward to June, 2014 when I was going through the discover tab on Wattpad. I was trying to look out for some trans-themed story but could hardly find any, max to max 10 stories. So I thought to myself, why not write a short story based on a Trans protagonist? It was just a random thought and I planned it to be an epistolary categorized book so that people would enjoy reading the 'chat-version' method of the story. And loo! Within a period of two weeks, the book reached 2K reads. I think it's good to mention that none of my books back then received so many reads. Like, I hardly had 87 reads or something on every other book so Midnight Conversations was really a big thing for me. I was all "Woahh 2K reads? Penguin Publishers where are y'all here's the next big author" (Just kidding omfg xD). To be honest, I didn't expect this book to even get like 500 reads or something. As many consider this topic taboo, I assumed this would max to max reach a hundred reads. That's it. So yes, the fact that this book has 1 lakh reads makes me extremely happy.

Anyway, I want to thank every single one of you for giving my book a chance. I hope you enjoyed it and now possibly empathize with the trans community. :)  

- Ash.