Transgender Rights Group Sends Legal Notice to MX Player for Defamatory Show

The Telangana-based Trans Equality Society, a transgender rights group, has sent a legal notice on December 17 to OTT platform MX Player for their show “Pati, Patni aur Panga”, which has drawn flak from the entire queer community for its alleged “defamatory and malicious content” against transgender and queer persons and all other members of the LGBTQIA community. They have demanded an unconditional apology from the OTT platform as well as withdrawal of the show and related videos from all online platforms with immediate effect.

According to the Trans Equality Society (TES), the show, the trailer for which was released on December 5 on MX player and YouTube, not only defames but also shows the lack of research by the director, Abir Sengupta and the producers.

Even though the trailer release was followed by a huge uproar among the transgender community and several people took to social media to point out the problems with the show, the TES states that, “MX Player, the directors of the show, the producers and the actors took no steps to rectify their mistakes, apologise for what they have done or show even a sliver of empathy to what the members of the trans community go through on a daily basis”. Instead, the six-episode long series was released on the platform on December 8.

The TES in a press release have expressed their shock at the extreme ignorance shown by MX Player in going ahead with the release of the malicious show. They stated that, “This show makes it clear that media houses want to put no effort in allaying stereotypes about members of the queer
community. But would rather pander to those interests and feed the blatant misinformation and false assumptions, that have resulted in the blatantly transphobic society that we live in as of now.”

Further, the show is an insult to the long-standing battle being fought by transgender and other members of the LGBTQIA community against the humiliation, discrimination and oppression they face. The legal notice sent by TES states that the show “marginalises and suppresses the voice of transgender persons”, in addition to perpetuating and propagating “the social stigma, stereotypes and humiliations faced by transgender and queer persons”.

Not only that, the show also violates the Supreme Court’s NALSA judgment in which the apex court had passed a slew of directions to eliminate discrimination and marginalisation of transgender persons, according to the legal notice.

The notice also points out several instances in which the actors of the show had made transphobic and discriminatory statements in to news groups. Therefore, TES demands that along with the immediate withdrawal of the show, MX Player should also withdraw all news reports and videos on all platforms with immediate effect.