CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu government has informed the Madras High Court that discussions are going on with stakeholders on designing and setting up of gender-neutral toilets in public places in order to provide better sanitation for the trans-persons.
The submission was made by State Government Pleader A Edwin Prabhakar before the first bench of Acting Chief Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq on Friday when a public interest litigation petition on the issue came up for hearing.
Referring to the suggestion of the court during a previous hearing for converting existing toilets into gender-neutral ones, the SGP said such conversion would result in changing the design of the existing structure.
However, he said, the disabled-friendly toilets, which are available in almost all the public buildings, can be declared as gender-neutral.
“In future, we can design and construct gender-neutral toilets in public buildings. Discussions are going with the stakeholders,” he told the court.
The petition seeking gender-neutral toilets was filed by a trans activist Fed Rogers praying for orders to provide gender-neutral public toilets across the State.
The petitioner wanted the court to order construction of single-occupancy gender neutral toilets/all gender toilets in addition to the existing gendered restrooms in educational institutions, malls, bus stations, railway stations, airports and other public places in the State and be made accessible to trans-persons.