THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict on Section 377 came out on Thursday, there was one person in Thiruvananthapuram to whom it gifted a special kind of hope. ‘’I hope my parents will accept me now,’’ said Nadira, an undergraduate student in the city, on the sidelines of a celebration organised by the transgender community to hail the verdict.
Born in a Muslim family, the youngster says she recognised her true identity at the age of 14, but could not gather the courage to ‘come out’. “I dared to come out only last year, though I knew my education and everything would end with such a decision. And at that time we didn’t have the law on our side,’’ she said, her voice brimming with emotion.
Now that the apex court has ruled, people who decide to come out now may not confront the same unhappy situations that she did, she said. While doing away with IPC Section 377 is the first step toward social acceptance, a change in laws is also needed for a respectable social change, according to Nadira, an undergraduate in mass communication at the AJ College here. ‘’Only through a law can we resist those voices that question even our right to live,” she said.
Though the judicial system has ruled in their favour, the real battle still awaits them, said Sandhya Rajesh, district vice president of a transgender association in the state capital. “We’ve won the legal battle, now it’s time to win the social battle,” she said. At the Manaveeyam Road, people from all walks of life joined the transgender community in celebration, hugging, singing, dancing and slicing cakes.