How else to celebrate India's movement on LGBT rights than with a pageant. A beauty pageant, to be precise. For transgender contestants!

While this sort of thing is de rigeur in Thailand and the Philippines, the Asian giant's Miss India Transgender pageant will be a first. If all the organizing goes well, some 150 contestants will compete for the top prize (and sashes for best eyes, hair, and skin) come December in Chennai. And all the transexuals are excited!

The country's first transgender television host Rose [pictured above] feels such events go a long way in motivating transgenders to look good and feel good. "A lot of men and women turn up as audience for such events and that gives a boost to the transgenders' self esteem. And of course, there is a glamour element to the event," says Rose, who came runner-up in a Chennai pageant organised in 2007.

"That was the first time I got on to a stage. It was a challenge, a learning experience. It helped me a lot in what I am today."

Now, to make all things equal, we expect there to be a Mister India Transgender contest to follow, as a society that does not exploit FTMs as well is, frankly, unjust!