DHAKA, March 19 (NsNewsWire) — Shahria Sharmin had gone to her husband’s factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, looking to tell a positive story about the garment industry, one that would offset negative public perceptions. What she found, instead, was an even more challenging topic: the lives of five hijras, the local term for the culture of men who identify as women. By day, they presented themselves as men, but at night they dressed as women and kept a home for their boyfriends.

That this was happening in Bangladesh, the world’s fourth most populous Muslim country, intrigued Ms. Sharmin, who grew up in a conservative family in which such topics were never discussed.

“I was surprised to see that life,” she said. “Why and how, because I didn’t have any communication, or any sort of idea about them before that.”

There are thought to be very few hijras in the mainstream work force — only five out of 4,000 workers at the factory — but Ms. Sharmin made hijra culture the subject of her photo series “Call Me Heena.” Typically, hijras, whom the government of Bangladesh officially recognized as a third gender in 2014, live under the protection of gurus, and perform various activities in the streets, dressed as women, to earn money.

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