With the Supreme Court of India legally recognizing the country’s transgender population as the ‘third gender’ – now, lakhs of such people, hitherto shunned – will have the right to same education, jobs, and driving licenses as males and females.
This should mean that about 500,000 – according to Census 2011 – of the shunned community can have a shot at better lives than just dancing at weddings and births, or looking for livelihood in flesh trade. Rightly, the Supreme Court’s order ensures reservation for the third gender under the OBC category to pursue education or for any government employment schemes.
In fact, the Supreme Court’s recognition is the second-most significant step for the community since the last Census itself. Then, the government decided on the inclusion of the third gender in the 2011 population count as a separate category. Transgenders’ addition in the census process in the ‘others’ category was welcomed by the community members and activists as a recognition which, they felt will inch the “faceless people” closer to other basic rights like voting and crimes against them being registered.
Around the world the third gender community is quite common actually. Some native American groups are known to havetwo spirited people on whom rest spiritual powers of such communities. In the Balkans, when the first born is not a male, virgins are sworn in as men and fulfil all the functions of the males, are even allowed to do things that men do, that is, sling a gun, drink at bars, etcetera, till the land, cut firewood, just so the land a family owns stays with them. Closer home, Thai ladyboys (Kathoeys) have been known for long but their history is mired despite the respect traditions and culture grants them.
The recent Supreme Court ruling specifically calls out to the hijra (eunuch) community, which is primarily associated with transgender people, and other nonmale or female identified citizens. In spite of the fact that hijras have been known since Indus Civilisation and have their places even in epics like the Mahabharata and religious ceremonies, they have largely fallen from the social weave, discriminated and segregated, in modern times – according to filmmaker Rose Venkatesan – because “of their association of with homosexuality”.
The community’s ostracization dates back to the Raj, when the colonists passed a law in 1897 classifying all eunuchs as criminals. “Since then many have been ostracised – either for cross dressing or being intersex – and have gone on to form their own communities, around a guru or a mother figure to provide emotional and financial security. Many even took to using a secret code language known as Hijra Farsi for protection.
“More recently, hijras have been seen as auspicious and are often asked to bless celebrations such as marriages and births.
In India’s larger cities this has waned, forcing many to rely on begging or prostitution,” writes Homa Khaleeli in The Guardian newspaper.
According to the Supreme Court, “Recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue… (transgender people are) sidelined and treated as untouchables, forgetting the fact that the moral failure lies in the society’s unwillingness to contain or embrace different gender identities and expressions, a mindset which we have to change.”
Indeed. This is a benchmark decision in the light of its ruling against homosexuality four months ago, which is now being relooked at. Earlier this year, the Court recriminalized “unnatural” sex and made it an offence punishable by up to life imprisonment.
Even as the Supreme Court ruling gets to effect the lives of the community. BharatiKannamma, 53, is emboldened to take the first ever step of becoming the first third gender individual to contest the general election. Kannamma ran as an independent for the Madurai district in Tamil Nadu.
But this trendsetter has reservations and doubts of her own, and not because she has never contested an election before. As Kannamma campaigned on an auto rickshaw and without the big bucks to back her, the social activist told Agence France Presse: “Even when people come to see me talk, they have certain set notions. It is only when they hear what I have to say and see me in person that they can get past the fact that I am a transgender. I have nothing to fear and I have no vested interest in being corrupt and the people see that.”
Kannamma has been involved in the transgender community for years now – in 2004, she quit her bank job to fight for rights for the transcommunity as well as for those in poverty. “Armed with a masters degree in sociology, a four-personcampaign team, and an $83/day budget, Kannamma is fighting through the world of nepotism, bribery, and general corruption that India’s political world is often steeped in,” says a media report.
But the problem of the third gender is not just about a social ignorance and disown. While welcoming the Supreme Court judgement, Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, said that the lack of previous political intervention “is a reflection of the neglect and bias that the community endures”.
Ritu, however, feels times are changing. Belonging to the third gender population in Delhi, Ritu says: “The Supreme Court judgement opens up many doors for us now. Most importantly, of the right to earn. When we start making economic contributions to our families in ways that they recognise, acknowledge and approve – read not just via flesh trade – our families will hesitate to shun us.”
On people like Kannamma and Ritu lies the onerous task of seeing the society in a new light. For, being from the grassroots they are just the individuals who can look at issues related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and other marginalized populations in a newlight, without malicious, vested interests.
However, at the moment among the many troubles the community has is the dichotomy of the court’s ruling on homosexuality and the gender accorded to them. For, the situation puts their sexuality in question.
According to social activist Ashok Row Kavi, a leading campaigner for LGBT rights, the sexual activity of many transgenders could still be deemed criminal under Indian law. “It’s like being allowed to be called a lawyer but not being able to practise law,” he told NDTV
The issue of the third gender goes deeper than that meets the eye. Transgenders cannot be identified the same as homosexuals. There are misconceptions too, of whether all transgeners are “born” male or not, how they are separate from the eunuch community?
However, that is likely to change with the Supreme Court order. ArunJanardhan of the Times of India focuses on the transgender community to look at the light at the end of the tunnel. He writes that the community comprises two categories – some born male and living the life of a female; and others who are born female, but live the life of a male.
“Apart from an Aadhaar card and a few other government documents, there were no options to declare a ‘third gender’. The SC order, reiterating that the gender identity is a right to be determined solely by that person, has now given three options. For a transgender filling up an application form, the right of choice may be any of the three genders (male/female/ third gender),” he says.
Here lies a broader question. What about those who are medically not born a male or a female. That needs a clarification, still.
www.grandmasters.in | 8 Years & Counting
www.rcls.in | 8 Years & Counting
www.itlegalsummit.com | 8 Years & Counting
www.bfls.in | 8 Years & Counting
www.maels.in | 8 Years & Counting
www.plcs.co.in | 8 Years & Counting
Copyright © 2020 Lex Witness - India's 1st Magazine on Legal & Corporate Affairs Rights of Admission Reserved
