Sahara Chowdhury

Sahara Chowdhury (Bengali: সাহারা চৌধুরী; born 2002) is a Bangladeshi student and human rights activist for LGBTQ rights in Bangladesh. A transgender woman, she gained prominence following her expulsion from Metropolitan University, Sylhet and subsequent hunger strike.

In childhood, Chowdhury's family's work included frequent moves to live in various villages in the Chittagong Division.^[2] When she was older her family began to stay in Sylhet.^[2] As a teenager she became aware that people perceived as effeminate men were vulnerable to transphobia and violence.^[2]

She joined the Metropolitan University, Sylhet in 2022 to study English.^[1] After joining university, she came out as a trans woman, including using female restrooms with permission from the authorities.^[1] In 2024, she joined the protests in the July Revolution and acted as an organizer for protesters from her university while doing her third year of studies.^[2]

On 14 August 2025, Chowdhury was expelled from the university for carrying a knife on grounds, for posts on social media, and for accusations of having made threats to social media influencers opposing LGBTQ+ rights.^[3] Her supporters claimed that anti-LGBTQ sentiment was the cause of this — as the university proctor claimed that she violated societal laws and culture due to being transgender, that the University authorities were aware and had permitted her to carry a knife in the campus for self-protection, and protested the expulsion with a petition and statements.^[3][4] 162 people from Bangladeshi civil society signed a public letter condemning Metropolitan University for her expulsion.^[5][6][7] Later at a press conference, she highlighted how the influencers she was accused of sending death threats to committed genocide denial of LGBT people by denying their contribution and opposing their registry in government website for martyrs in the July Revolution— and the preceding year of violence and social exclusion suffered by queer people as a result of that rhetoric.^{[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]}

Chowdhury has been the subject of a controversy for authoring a book titled Bangladeshi Queer Manifesto that called for violent methods of securing LGBT rights, including bombing police stations should they arrest people due to their queer identity, she argued she was merely mimicking the tone of right wing extremists online for satirical purposes and later published a less violent iteration of the manifesto that focused more on the negative material impact of the lack of lgbt rights.^[1][15]

On 10 October 2025, she began a hunger strike at Shaheed Minar, Dhaka to demand rights for same-sex marriage and LGBTQ marriage rights.^[16] Her protest ended, after a public rally of LGBT people and allies who stood with her to demand legal LGBT marriage rights and anti-discrimination laws, when she collapsed from fatigue and her friends carried her away to recover.^[17][18] There have been accusations of a Bangladeshi mainstream media blackout, refusing to cover her case. ^[19]

• LGBTQ rights in Bangladesh
• Human rights in Bangladesh
• Xulhaz Mannan

• "Press Conference Statement of Sahara Chowdhury". Bangladesh Feminist Archives. 24 August 2025.