Dorothy director Karthik Subbaraj condemns Mohan G over remarks to a transgender woman

Dorothy director Karthik Subbaraj has publicly condemned filmmaker Mohan G for the way he questioned a transgender woman during a discussion about the film. "Nobody has given you the right to hurt them in front of everyone," Karthik Subbaraj said in a video posted on X.

The exchange that upset him was about marriage and children. Mohan G kept asking whether transgender people could have children. Karthik Subbaraj said this turned a talk about cinema into a way to humiliate someone. By his account, the woman had described marriage as sharing love and living happily with a partner.

Karthik Subbaraj rejected the idea that being a parent decides what a person is worth. He asked whether having children was the only goal in life, and whether couples who cannot have children deserve less happiness. "Transphobia is gender violence and is as bad as caste or communal violence," he said, and he called for action against speech that demeans people.

He was clear that the film itself is open to attack. Anyone can criticise Dorothy or say they did not like it, he said, but there is something called humanity, and the person sitting across from you is a human being who deserves dignity.

In the same video, he thanked audiences for backing Dorothy, a film about transgender lives. He said some people tried to spread negative publicity about it for that reason, and the film succeeded anyway.