Ridiculed, put down, made fun of and often victims of snide and bawdy comments, transgenders have faced an uphill battle while going about their daily lives. Many have not been able to continue
in the formal education system marked with insensitivity, ignorance and negligence. Yet for these braves, ‘life has to be lived’, and they do not fight shy of the toil that they must put in to realise their goal.
Ritwika Mitra speaks to some such who have found hope in a project of the Centre to train them in skills and empower them to live the life of their dreams.
The last few years have not been easy for Navya. Fighting for acceptance at home, shuttling to earn a living and seeking an educational degree, had always been a constant struggle for the 19-year-old.
When things started looking up, the next challenge was, who would let out a house on rent to a transgender woman? But hope is around the corner, believes the bubbly and optimistic teenager. “Getting a job as a make-up artist is not far away now,” says Navya.
Navya is among the cohort of 20 transgender persons who are being trained in a pilot project of a professional make-up artist course which started on December 20. This is for the first time the National Backward Classes Finance & Development Corporation (NBCFDC) and the National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD) under the Centre’s Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s initiative has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NGO Society for People's Awareness, Care & Empowerment (SPACE) to run a project exclusively for the transgender community.
A difficult life still..
“I am a student at Deshbandhu College. It is difficult to attend college with people making fun of me and passing lewd comments. I stopped going to college after the first year but I will not give up so easily. To support myself, I am engaged in sex work -- most of it is online,” said the student of English Honours. Her story echoes 18-year-old’s narrative of how her life unfolded over long years of neglect and low esteem. “I failed class 10. I wanted to study and complete the course. But do we have that enabling environment?” she asks.
She turns sombre, reflecting “Why can’t we just be identified as human beings? If society understood what a transgender person is, then we would not face this plight,” she said. “Discrimination against transgender people at educational institutions is common,” points out Manabi Bandyopadhyay, who was the country’s first transgender college principal. “My struggle continues every day; even now,” Manabi, who is currently the principal at Dhola Mahavidalaya affiliated to Calcutta University, said. Due to lack of rehabilitation initiatives, it is difficult to mainstream the transgender community and break the cycle of traditional occupations, say experts. Mobilising the community and offering employability are the other challenges
Flexible options needed
“The government should be more flexible in piloting programs for the transgender community. It should also ensure that those being trained find employment in the sector that they are being trained in,” said Anjan Joshi, executive director, SPACE. The other areas of training that can be explored are computer training, choreography, bakery and fashion designing, added Joshi. Bandyopadhyay points out that while assessing the skills among people of the community is important, the government should also make a conscious effort to move away from running stereotype programs.
Raising awareness of parents so that they do not abandon transgender children, providing basic education to the community and steering them away from traditional occupations should be the aim, he said, adding, “Legal knowledge is an area which the transgender community can benefit from if they are trained in it.” With employability being a challenge, Rupika Dhillon, project director, SPACE, said the organisation plans to tap all the major salon chains to open their doors to those being trained. “The training modules are also planned in the assessed interest and needs of the community. Mobilising them has been a major challenge. So we hope that the group is employable after this course as they often have to squeeze this training between hours that goes into earning a livelihood,” said Dhillon.
Mobilisation not easy task
“It is not easy to train the transgender community. You have to be working with the committee to mobilize them,” said K Narayan, managing director, NBCFDC. The NBCFDC has scheduled a meeting with the training institutes which had put in expressions of interest (EOIs) in developing more projects to uplift the community. “We plan to sanction projects for at least 200 people from the transgender community within the coming months. Among the EOIs, there are some proposals from the south (India) to train them as customer care and office management executives.
There are companies there which are also keen to engage transgender persons,” said Narayan. This newspaper had earlier reported that the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had allocated an amount of around Rs 1 crore to the NBCFDC in 2018 for skill development training programmes for transgender people. An RTI response had also informed that the amount of money spent since 2018 was ‘nil’.
The number of beneficiaries was therefore low. The primary challenges were failing to reach out to the transgender community, understanding the community’s specific requirements and building a network system in order to conceptualise the programs in a time-bound manner.
Mother’s tip on suicide
Back at the training centre as a make-up trainer, Apurva directs the trainees to perfect the ‘smoky eyes blend’ make-up for the day, Dimple, 19 says, that when her mother found out that she was a transgender, she was given a few options -- the many ways on how to commit suicide. She chose life, and the decision to be free to ‘turn into a girl’. Amidst the stories of being abandoned by families, stories of Mallika and Madhu stand out. “I earned my space back home through the pride I earned through my work. I work as a social worker with SPACE and now I have got this opportunity to attend the make-up course. It is easier for me to fit into my family now,” said Madhu, 29.
Her friend Mallika had a similar story. “Family support is the most important thing. If it is not there, then life such as ours totally crumbles and then we are cast out onto the streets to find our own life,” said Kalki Subramaniam, transgender activist and founder of Sahodari Foundation. According to Census 2011, the official count for the third gender in the country is 4.9 lakh. However, experts say, this is an understatement. “The present efforts by the government to initiate the skill training programmes is a small beginning,” said Subramaniam. He admitted that the “progress has been very slow in states under various governments. The Transgender Rights Bill has been a very disappointing one for us.”
There’s hope still
Parliament recently passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill. This came about despite strong protests from within the community which raised objections over some provisions of the now-notified Act. Despite the reservations over the Act, there is hope among the 20 transgenders attending SPACE’s training programme. The stories of Shivangi, Nazo, Sonakshi, Reena, Navya and Dummy merge after a point. They are together in sharing a common past and now their shared dream of finding ‘fame’ through their work in the future is what keeps them together.
While some of them are hopeful of securing stable jobs after the course, some want to be self-employed. “Honestly, I am tired of clapping to please and regale others. I want people to clap at what I achieve now,” said Reena. To be inspired they do not need to look far. “I am certain that job opportunities will open up for this group,” said Apurva.