Chennai: After being harassed, driven into ghettos and reduced to begging and prostitution, there finally is some hope in the air for the transgender community in the country, with the Rajya Sabha set to discuss a private member bill that aims to secure their rights, and more importantly, their dignity.
The ‘Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014’ seeks to secure the right to life and personal liberty, right to live in the community, right to integrity, right to home and speech, protection from abuse, violence, and exploitation, freedom of speech, directs educational institutions to provide inclusive education to transgenders among other things. In short, the basic rights enjoyed by the men and women, but denied to the community.
Gopi Shankar, a gender activist, sees the bill moved by DMK MP Tiruchy N Siva as revolutionary, even before it is to be passed, “for the sheer reason that a private member bill has been received with unanimous support by all political parties. This is a landmark victory for transgenders.”
Agrees Bharathi Kannamma, one of the three transgenders who are going to represent the community in Rajya Sabha when the bill is to be discussed. “I am going to say why you must take care of transgenders and what happens if their welfare is neglected,” she told Express.
Kannamma, a senior transgender activist who has been taking initiatives to empowerment community members, cites statistics from National AIDS Control Organisation to highlight the situation. “In 2001, NACO had surveyed about six groups of people, including transgenders. When they did a follow-up survey in 2014, it was found that the prevalence of AIDS had not come down only among the transgenders community.”
If there are about 1,500 transgenders in a particular city and most of them have about three clients, it works out to 45,000 sexual encounters a day.
“You might snigger at the significance or relevance of the statistics. But easily 10 per cent of them pick up infections each day and no hospital is willing to treat them,” she says, stressing that a nation can neglect the welfare of the third gender at its own peril.
Coming in the backdrop of the Supreme Court order in April 2014 that transgenders be treated on par with the OBC community and given reservation in educational institutions and government jobs, this bill will establishing this as a matter of right, believes Kannamma.
While alternate sexuality activist Anjali Gopalan welcomes the bill, she is skeptical of its reach. “Will educational institutions admit transgender children? Will hospitals and doctors treat transgenders? Will more transgenders come forward and make use of the opportunities? One can’t really say. But at least we can mull legal action, if not anything else,” she says.
Kalki Subramaniam of Sahodari initiative seconds Gopalan’s opinion. “Unless the attitude of people change, the bill will not translate into tangible benefits. But I am happy that at least transgenders can now fight exploitation legally. People from all walks of life need to be conditioned to empathise with transgenders, while school and medical curriculum should educate about them. Unless that happens, this bill will merely remain as a publicity stunt on paper.” While transgenders and activists campaigning for their rights evoke mixed reactions about the bill, they agree that this is a first step towards securing the basic rights for the third gender, rights that would deem them human.
Courtesy: Indian Express
