Throughout the night, Anjali Rimi held back tears.

For six years, she has led Parivar Bay Area, an organization centering and supporting Hijrah and Kinnar people in the United States and across the globe.

On Oct. 20, during Diwali and in a packed, brightly decorated office full of long-time friends, family and supporters, Rimi was able to cut the ribbon and officially open a physical space that Parivar can call home.

“I’m feeling very grateful,” she said to KQED. “We have tried many times to see if we can actually have a place where we can belong, we can be ourselves. And being in this physical space, it gives us that rooting.”

“It also looks at our existence as one that is formidable when we are being erased as human beings.”

Parivar describes itself as the nation’s first and o

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