Transgender community leaders and activists are against the recently announced school quota for transgender children. They call the move illogical.
Recently, the state Education Department of public instructions issued guidelines for admission to schools under the Right to Education for the academic year 2016-17.
The Act set aside 25 per cent of the seats for the RTE quota, out of which 16 per cent is for disadvantaged groups. Transgender children have been allotted a quota under this section.
The other children who fall into this category are orphans, the HIV affected, children with special needs, migrant and street children.
Transgender women City Express spoke to said that age five, when children are usually admitted to school, is too early to discover a transgender identity. But a paediatrician and counsellor disagreed saying that age is not a problem in determining the identity.
Akkai Padmashali, founder of Ondede, a support group for transgenders, said, “The child at the age of five years cannot be defined as transgender. At the age of five even the parents have no idea whether their children are trans-gendered.”
It takes four to five years more for the gender identity to develop, she said. “Once the child is nine or 10 years, the gender can be confirmed. Hence we will strongly oppose this decision to set aside seats in schools, through the RTE,” she told City Express.
Chandini, of Payana, too opposes this quota. “There are no transgender children. This identity is formed in adulthood, after 18 years.” She suggested that such quotas be given to college-going transgender students. “The guidelines must be revised,” she urged.
Suman, a transgender woman who works with Ondede, found the quota “pointless” and even counter-productive. “The child is too young during admissions and the gender identity is yet to be formed,” she said.
“Even if the seats are provided to such children, it may harm their mental wellbeing. They may feel out of place (in a school system that does not understand the condition).”
Rakshitha, her colleague, agreed. “Transgender children may be embarrassed to study with other children,” she said. “There is always the fear that children who get in through this quota may not be treated on a par with other children. Will the teachers give them equal attention?”
She said that they will “strongly oppose this quota” and ask for revision of the guidelines.
There are differing opinions from experts. Vinay Chandran, counsellor and executive director of Swabhava Trust, said that transgender identity can be discovered at any age. But as the head of a trust that works with gender politics, he does not believe that quotas alone will help. “Providing such quotas is the responsibility of the government, but such quotas are not enough,” he said.
He pointed to the failure of an earlier programme. “The Karnataka government had provided seats in Karnatak University for transgenders in the Masters programme. But there are no students taking it up,” he said. “The main thing is that a comfortable environment must be provided to the children to study with the other children. The government must have special classes for the teachers and children to treat such children equally. Otherwise the children may be traumatised and there are chances of them running away or even attempting suicide.”
Paediatrician Rashmi Prem said that biologically sex can be determined with some medical tests. “Medically we don’t term it transgender, because it does not indicate anything. We call them disorders of sex development.”
This condition can be diagnosed very early. “But transgender is not a medical term that we use,” she said.