For decades, Tamil cinema largely viewed gender through familiar binaries. Men were expected to behave like men, women like women, and anyone who stepped outside those boundaries was often reduced to a comic character, a villain or a source of shock.
That landscape has been changing. In recent years, a number of films have attempted to look beyond conventional ideas of gender, sexuality and relationships. Some have placed transgender characters at the centre of their stories, while others have questioned heterosexuality, masculinity, patriarchy and the social rules that determine who is allowed to love whom.
The latest film to bring these questions back into the spotlight is Karthik Subbaraj’s ‘Dorothy’, which released on September 25. The film, starring Keerthy Suresh, Rishikanth and Sananth, has generated considerable discussion over its treatment of transgender identity, queer relationships and masculinity. It has also faced criticism and online backlash, making the conversation around representation impossible to ignore.
But ‘Dorothy’ is not where this conversation began. Tamil cinema has been exploring different aspects of gender and sexuality for several years, sometimes quietly and sometimes provocatively. Looking at these films together reveals an interesting evolution — from characters who were once treated as outsiders to stories increasingly interested in their emotions, identities and right to exist on their own terms.
‘Super Deluxe’: A transgender character at the heart of the story
Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s ‘Super Deluxe’ remains one of the most discussed examples of contemporary Tamil cinema engaging with transgender identity.
Vijay Sethupathi plays Shilpa, a transgender woman who returns to her family after undergoing gender transition. The film does not simply use Shilpa as a symbol. Her return creates uncomfortable questions within her family about identity, acceptance, parenthood and the meaning of belonging.
One of the film’s most striking ideas is that Shilpa’s identity does not need to be validated by everyone around her for it to be real. The conflict comes largely from the people trying to reconcile their own expectations with the person standing before them.
Academic work on Tamil cinema has subsequently examined Shilpa’s character in terms of identity, social acceptance, stigma and agency, while also discussing the complexities of representing transgender lives through a mainstream film.
What made ‘Super Deluxe’ particularly significant was its refusal to make the transgender character merely decorative. Shilpa was part of the emotional core of the story.
‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’: Love without the boundaries
Pa Ranjith’s ‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’ approached the subject from a different direction. The film placed love, caste, gender and sexuality in the same conversation. Its theatre collective brought together people with different identities and viewpoints, creating a fictional space where conventional ideas about relationships could be challenged.
The transgender character Sylvia, played by Sherin Celin Mathew, is not introduced merely through suffering or victimhood. She participates in conversations about love, gender, caste and society and possesses her own political and emotional voice.
A 2026 research paper examining transgender representation in Tamil cinema specifically identified ‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’ and ‘Peranbu’ as examples of films that provide more dignified representations of trans women and positive interactions between cisgender and transgender characters. The film’s larger argument is equally important: love cannot always be neatly organised according to the categories society creates.
‘Peranbu’: Seeing the person before the identity
Ram’s ‘Peranbu’ offered another important representation through Meera, played by Anjali Ameer.
Rather than reducing the character to her transgender identity, the film connects her to questions of companionship, intimacy, care and human dignity.
Meera’s relationship with Amudhavan and his daughter becomes a way for the film to examine how society looks at transgender people when they enter spaces traditionally governed by conventional ideas of family and relationships.
Recent academic research has specifically examined ‘Peranbu’ alongside ‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’, arguing that their portrayals can create opportunities for audiences to understand transgender characters through empathy rather than stereotypes.
That represents an important change in storytelling. The question is no longer simply, “What is this person’s gender?” It becomes, “What kind of life does this person want to live?”
‘Taramani’: Gender politics beyond the obvious
Ram’s ‘Taramani’ does not centre its narrative on transgender identity, but gender remains fundamental to its storytelling.
The film questions expectations placed on men and women within relationships and examines how society judges women differently from men. Its characters repeatedly confront ideas about morality, sexuality, independence and what constitutes an acceptable relationship.
This is an important part of the larger conversation because gender identity cannot be separated entirely from the social expectations attached to gender.
‘Magizhini’ and the expansion of the conversation
Films such as ‘Magizhini’ also belong to the growing body of Tamil cinema that has attempted to engage with gender and sexuality outside conventional mainstream formulas.
What is notable about the newer wave is that these subjects are increasingly being treated as dramatic material rather than simply as jokes or sensational plot devices.
That distinction matters. For a long time, queer and transgender characters in Indian popular cinema were frequently written around stereotypes. Contemporary Tamil cinema has increasingly attempted to give such characters interiority — relationships, fears, desires, ambitions and contradictions.
The shift is not uniform, and representation continues to be debated. But the direction of the conversation has clearly expanded.
‘Kaathal – The Core’: When sexuality becomes part of a marriage story
Although it is a Malayalam film, Mammootty’s ‘Kaathal – The Core’ deserves mention in any discussion of South Indian cinema’s evolving approach to sexuality.
Directed by Jeo Baby, the film places a same-sex relationship within the framework of an ordinary middle-class marriage.
Instead of treating homosexuality as a sensational mystery, the film asks what happens when a person’s sexuality collides with the expectations of marriage, family and society.
Its presence in discussions around ‘Dorothy’ is significant because both films demonstrate how queer themes can be integrated into stories about everyday people rather than being confined to a separate cinematic universe. Recent coverage has explicitly compared the two films in the context of LGBTQ representation in South Indian cinema.
A subject that was once largely absent from mainstream narratives can now become the central point of discussion around a major theatrical release featuring a recognised star.
The conversation is bigger than one film
The important point is not whether ‘Dorothy’ is the first Tamil film to discuss gender identity. It clearly isn’t.
Tamil cinema has been having this conversation through different characters and genres for years. ‘Super Deluxe’ asked audiences to look at a transgender parent and confront their own assumptions.
‘Peranbu’ explored companionship and dignity. ‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’ connected gender and sexuality with caste, politics and love. ‘Taramani’ questioned conventional expectations surrounding men, women and relationships.
‘Kaathal – The Core’ demonstrated how a same-sex relationship could become the emotional centre of an intimate family drama. And now ‘Dorothy’ has once again placed gender, masculinity and queer identity in the middle of a mainstream cinematic conversation.
The journey is therefore not simply from one film to another. It is a gradual change in what Tamil and South Indian cinema considers worthy of being seen, discussed and debated.
Perhaps the most significant shift is this: gender identity is increasingly being presented not as a spectacle, but as part of a person’s life.
And cinema, at its best, has always been about allowing audiences to see lives beyond their own.