Trans community in Tamil Nadu seeks state backing
The LGBTQIA+ community’s fight for their fundamental rights has continued for over two years after the Supreme Court struck down Section 377 as unconstitutional. Transgender people, driven out of the mainstream by social barriers, snubs, and outright discrimination over the years, are still struggling to get back. Efforts by state governments to bring about sweeping societal changes have been agonizingly slow. Tamil Nadu, the first state to introduce a transgender welfare policy with access to government hospitals for free gender affirmation surgery, has notified the rules for the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, after a long delay. The state, also the first to amend its state police guidelines to ensure officers abstain from harassing community members, seems to have missed a few steps on the way. The state, which saw several protests and intensified activism, is yet to force a change at the ground level.
There is, of course, some light at the end of the tunnel. After the government accepted their right to get enrolled as voters in 2004, a third of TN’s transgender population is on the electoral roll—the highest in the country. In 2006, the state government issued an order with recommendations to improve living conditions for the community. Yet, the community members face flagrant bias wherever they go. A few of them, like Preethisha, a food delivery partner from Tirunelveli, or Sakthi, a veterinary doctor from Puducherry, may have fought and earned admiration for themselves. But a majority of them continue to seek government support. They want the government to implement rights-based policies to ensure they get their place in society. A long-pending demand is to get 1% reserved in government educational institutions. Strangely, they have to hold two identity cards: one for availing of central schemes and the other through the Thirunangai mobile application.
When M K Stalin revamped the State Development Policy Council soon after he took charge in 2021, Bharatanatyam dancer Narthaki Nataraj, the first transgender person to be awarded the Padma Shri, was inducted. The council formed a one-member team, comprising Nataraj, to delve into the woes faced by the community, and it has submitted the report. Keeping the recommendations of the report under wraps, the state government is believed to have gone with the rules prescribed in the central act. The report should be made public, and the government should look at the community’s demands more sympathetically.