Early Life and Transition- Anaya Bangar

Rajveer Sekhawat September 18, 2025 2 min read

Anaya Bangar, who is a left-handed batter and transgender woman, was born Aryan Bangar on December 26, 2000, in Mumbai, India, to former Indian cricketer and coach Sanjay Bangar. She is currently 24 years old.

Childhood and Cricket Career

Since her early childhood, Anaya claims that she had gender dysphoria. When she was about 8 or 9 years old, she recalls developing the need to be a girl, she would put on clothes that belonged to her mother and look at herself in the mirror. She studied at Don Bosco High School in Matunga Mumbai, and subsequently gained a Bachelor of Commerce degree in the Rizvi College. She further has a master degree in Design at De Montfort University in England.

Aryan later became Anaya and was an Indian daughter of a cricketer, who represented the club Islam Gymkhana in Mumbai on the cricket field. She also represented the state of Puducherry in the national Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy in 2019, during which she scored 300 runs in five matches, with one century and two half-centuries, and took 20 wickets. In the UK, she still played for Hinckley Cricket Club in Leicestershire.

Transition and Advocacy

Anaya started her transition process in December 2023, when she started Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). In November 2024, she publicly identified as a transgender woman and re-introduced herself as Anaya Bangar. She later changed her gender through gender-affirming surgery, which she has not been shy in disclosing to her audience.

Anaya has been a strong advocate of having transgender women in sports, she has come out loud to express the difficulties she has encountered. She has lamented harassment and discrimination she claims to have been at the hands of cricketing circles including verbal and unwanted advancements. In a reality television program, she showed how a renowned cricketer wrote an obscene picture to her when she became a transgender.

Challenging Policies and Raising Awareness

With the International Cricket Council (ICC) policy in 2023 that prohibits transgender women who have passed through male puberty taking part in international and domestic female cricket, Anaya has advised ICC and the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) to change their mind. She has provided scientific documents on her physiological alterations which she has experienced under hormone treatment to prove her side, that transgender women ought to be permitted to play once they become transgender.

Anaya is currently living in Manchester, UK, and through her platform, she can share her experience and transgender inclusivity in sports. She still advocates the changes in policy and creates awareness of the situation transgender athletes have to deal with. Read more