Through Guthli: Stories of Discomfort, Hope, and Resistance
Muskan Kharbanda 
Guthli Has Wings
On April 5, at CBA, Children’s Book for All, a community where we co-weave a gentle and sensitive holding through reading children’s books and sharing reflections, we read Guthli Has Wings. The reading was co-facilitated by the wonderful Ishada and Mani.
We gathered with the intention of holding the trans community in our hearts, standing in solidarity with their resistance to the recently passed anti-trans bill. As their identities continue to be questioned and challenged, we chose to sit with discomfort, a discomfort that pales in comparison to the harsh and unjust realities they face, and to hold hope for a more just and compassionate world.
Guthli Has Wings is a deeply moving story of a child who dreams of wearing a frock, while the world and its rigid structures attempt to confine and silence her. From a carefree child to one pushed into darkness, the story holds the lived realities of trans and queer individuals with tenderness and truth.
Guthlis and her allies
Some themes that emerged for us during the reading:
Our lives are shaped by structures
Patriarchy, transphobia, capitalism, these structures dictate how we live, who we become, what we wear, and where we belong. Isn’t that, in itself, a form of cruelty? And yet, with every fiber of our being, we resist. In safe spaces, communities, therapy, chosen families, we begin to reclaim ourselves. Our hope and resistance are more powerful than the structures that try to contain us.
Society’s rigidity and barbed wires
Society often feels tightly stitched with rigidity, leaving little room to move, loosen, or reimagine. Through Guthli, we saw parts of ourselves, in her unconventional rangoli, in her desire to choose what she wears. She became a mirror. Through her, we felt seen and gently empowered to hold on to our ways of being, even within restrictive systems, while dreaming of restitching them one day.
Guthli’s expression through Rangoli
Scrutiny and bullying
Guthli’s experiences of being scrutinized and bullied resonated deeply. Many of us have endured similar injustices in our own ways. It brought up reflections on power, how majorities often assert control by making others feel small.
“We know what’s best for you”
Society often claims to know what’s best for us. But how and why? Shouldn’t the person living in the body be the one making choices for their life?
Bullying when you don’t fit into the mould
Mothers and internalized norms
The story also opened up the pain of mothers, how deeply internalized norms make them complicit in restricting their children. There is love, and yet, the expression of that love becomes misaligned through control. This creates dissonance for both the child and the mother.
The grief of not being seen and gender joy
Not being seen brings a profound loneliness, even despair. And yet, alongside that, we also felt gender joy, in Guthli’s becoming, and in our own small, courageous acts of being ourselves.
When your identity is denied
Imagining What the Story Did Not Tell
I found myself wondering what shifted. What allowed Guthli’s family to see her, to hold her differently.
Perhaps it began with her mother’s love, a love that chose to grow. A love that was willing to question itself. She began to educate herself, to listen, to sit with the discomfort of realizing that what she had been taught about gender may not hold truth for her child.
It was not a single moment of transformation. There were pauses, resistance, confusion, and returns. The family stumbled, unlearned, and tried again.
They sought support, maybe through family therapy, where they could begin to name the hurt, take accountability, and slowly repair their relationship with Guthli.
Acceptance brings joy to everyone
And Guthli, she was no longer waiting to be understood. She began to name herself, on her own terms. She found fragments of home beyond her family, in friendships, in community, in spaces where she did not have to shrink or explain who she was.
Over time, her family learned to meet her there.
In small, everyday acts, in choosing her pronouns, in softening their language, in honoring her choice of what she wore. Maybe her mother stitched her a frock too, imperfect, but full of a love that was learning a new language.
In embracing Guthli, perhaps they also began to embrace parts of themselves they had long silenced.
What began as acceptance slowly turned into celebration. And that celebration did not stop at Guthli, it rippled outward, reshaping how they saw the world and others within it.
Guthli does not offer us a neat resolution. Instead, she offers us something more enduring, a reminder of love, light, and the quiet, powerful act of becoming.
I will resist. I will find joy.(Art by Ishada)
This reading was facilitated by Mani and Ishada Kawde.
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