Living Smile Vidya  Living Smile Vidya, or Smiley, is an Indian trans woman actor, assistant director, writer, and trans and Dalit rights activist from Chennai. She described her family as belonging to the Arunthatiyar caste in Andhra Pradesh, migrating to Chennai several generations ago. Her mother, a Dalit woman, worked as a street cleaner, in addition to domestic work. As a child, she described herself as being "a woman in my heart…even as I was being given male privilege.…I was mistaken to be male and couldn’t yet articulate that I was a girl and so I was educated much more than my sisters." In a 2013 interview, Smiley traces the roots of her public art and activism to her realization that "since all women get oppressed under patriarchy, and trans women and dalit women through the combined might of patriarchy with casteism and transphobia, I might as well have a loud mouth and be assertive than take everything silently – to be a strong but silent woman was not enough." Vidya holds a master's degree from Tanjavur Tamil University in applied linguistics. In an 2014 interview, she said "while doing my post-graduation at university, I spent most of the time in the Theater Department rather than my Linguistics Department…So I was able to do a couple of plays." After she moved away from Thanjavur, she begged for a living. After gender-reassignment surgery, she settled in Tamil Nadu, where she began her career working for two years at a rural bank in Madurai, and got involved with theatre. Smiley has been described as the first full-time trans theater actress in India, participating in over twenty performances with at least nine directors. According to "Orinam", Smiley known for her acting if Srijith Sundaram's Kattiyakkaari production "Molagapodi". She has acted in several short films, including "Kandal Pookkal" and "500 & 5", and in documentary films "Aghrinaigal" and "Butterfly". She acted in Leena Manimekalai's 2017 film "Is it Too Much to Ask?", where she plays a trans woman seeking housing in Chennai, but facing discrimination; the film, a mix of fiction and documentary, was based in part on her own extensive experiences with housing discrimination. In addition to theater, Smiley has worked as a clown, and described her experience as a dancer as being an important part of her journey as a trans woman.