Urooz Hussain is a trans woman who is challenging the stereotyping of her community people by taking brave steps and that too without getting unfazed by the scathing bullies and taunts. She stood firm and took her own decisions to take the challenges head on. She wasn't someone who would walk into oblivion, rather she developed her own restaurant to lead a respected life and also show the way to the transgender community.
27-year-old Urooz Hussain runs her restaurant 'Street Temptations' at Sector 119 in Noida. She hails from Munger district in Bihar. She is also a social worker, model and an entrepreneur. She believes that her decision to run a restaurant will inspire others from her community as well.
On November 21, 2019, Urooz opened her restaurant in Noida. It was not a simple journey since nobody was ready to give retail space to a trans woman. Urooz spent about Rs 7 lakh on the restaurant. The restaurant started doing well in 2019 but when the pandemic struck in 2020, everything halted.
The restaurant has seven staff who have been getting their salaries all throughout the lockdown period. According to Hussain, trans women normally open salons and boutiques but she wanted to break that mould and wanted to do something different.
Besides being an entrepreneur, Hussain is also co-founder of 'I Love Noida', . Recently, she also won Australia's beauty pageant for transgenders.
She said, “Pre-Covid, I had two trans women working at the restaurant, but they unfortunately had to go back home during the lockdown. Now, I am actively looking to hire people from the trans community.”
She continued, “Unfortunately, it’s been a tough year for all of us. I had to deal not only with this pandemic but also the judgements that came my way because of being a trans woman.”
In school, the majority of Hussain’s friends were all girls and she says that most of the conversation used to be about makeup. She said, “One of my happy memories from my school days was applying lipstick but I am very scared about how I confess my feelings to my parents.”
