Abstract
The relationship between education and liberation has long been a central concern in critical pedagogy and social justice discourse. For marginalized communities, particularly transgender individuals in India, education represents not only access to knowledge but also a means of resisting systemic oppression and reclaiming agency. This paper examines the transformative role of education in the life of Manobi Bandyopadhyay as narrated in her autobiography A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi. Drawing on queer theory, Foucauldian notions of power/knowledge, and intersectionality, the study explores how educational spaces simultaneously function as sites of exclusion and empowerment. Through a qualitative textual analysis, the paper argues that education becomes a critical tool for self-realization, identity negotiation, and social mobility. Manobi's journey from a marginalized gender-nonconforming child to India's first transgender college principal demonstrates how education can disrupt normative structures and enable transformative change. The study contributes to transgender studies and educational discourse by foregrounding education as a central axis of liberation in transgender life writing.