Transgender people can be identified as one who are bisexual, gay, lesbians or have any other sexual orientation, which is in India are commonly known as “hijara”, “kinner” and various others. Although in 2011, it was declared as a third gender, first and second being the male and female respectively, but we have seen in history that the presence of Transgender people can be seen from 9th Century BCE. During the era of Kings and Rulers, the Transgender people were holders of prominent positions such as political thinkers and kings specials and we’re an important part of the government system in that era.
The Life Of Transgender People
As soon as a transgender person is born in our country, its struggle begins then and there. At times they are abandoned by their birth parents and they face such sort of discrimination since then. When they grow, they are restricted from the basic educational opportunities which is their birth right too, and even if they somehow get the education they still face discrimination when they go to seek work from various fields of profession. All this discrimination from the society makes their life difficult and they are forced to take up jobs such as sex work, dancing and they get stuck forever in a vicious cycle of begging. Before 1871 in the British era the Transgender people had a special status in the society, but the British government rolled out the “Criminal Tribes Act of 1871”. This act degraded the value of these Transgender people at such an extent that the damage caused then is still visible.
In a landmark judgement passed by the Supreme Court in the case of National Legal Services Authority vs The Union of India and others[1]. Which recognised the rights of the Transgender people in the society. The bill aimed to abolish discrimination with transgender people at educational institutions such as schools and colleges and government aided and supported policies and facilities provided by them. Along with all these the bill also stated that no transgender person must be excluded for renting or buying property anywhere in India and they must not be forced into any sort of discrimination at any stage during formation of contracts. Apart from these there were various provisions in the bill, along with some major loopholes or drawbacks which faced a lot of criticism which gave rise to the Protests that were held at various parts of the country including the majority group in the country’s capital. One such drawback was “Gender recognition”, through which the Transgender would not be able to now change their documents which will showcase their identity. The Protestors put forward their arguments that they found the bill very ironic as it claims to provide equality and justice to all but it itself has various layered portions which will discriminate them from the society[2].
Why was the Act Opposed?
After visualizing and Analysing the whole situation both before and after the bill was introduced, one thing can be made clear that the bill was not properly drafted as it lacked the foremost reason i.e. equality in society. Also the legislation was not able to explain and present the bill properly to those people from whom it was supposed to be. Although it had provisions to eliminate discrimination of Transgender people in the society, but it doesn’t have any provision to secure the same(Security). Talking about rights and duties there is yet no provision for the matter of adoption and marriage of transgender. There is no clarity for the fact that whether it is legal or not in India to marry transgender or to adopt kids as a transgender parent. The act faced a lot of Criticism all over the media and social media.
It’s not hidden that in our country the Transgender People are facing discrimination and hatred since a very long time, making India a homophobic nation. Even today people can be seen sparing themselves from matters that involve the Transgender people, the society has also normalised the use of words “hijaras”, “chakka”, “meethe” and what not as abusive and disgraceful words to address them and to ill-treat them in the society. They are often beaten up publicly, also are both mentally and physically tortured, which makes their life miserable as hell since a very young age! Lately but now they have risen up to fight against the prejudice society and to fight for their rights and respect in society which they were always deprived of.
In a country where the governing body to run the nation is chosen on the basis of religion, politics, it’s not fascinating that such an irresponsible approach to provide justice to a particular amount of population has been made by our government. Even in the political agendas and resolutions there are so called “portfolios” there’s always mention of less important stuff like building of some statue or building of some religious bodies and buildings just to grab votes! No one does and no one prefers to talk about the real issues and concerns of the society.
The Harsh Reality
If we carefully look around us we can easily conclude that it is quite easy now to deviate people from some stronger and much more important issues to issues which are not even worth a penny, i.e. they are baseless. The Transgender Protection of Rights Act was made to safeguard the interests and remove any sort of discrimination from the lives of Transgender people through the long “impractical and nearly impossible path”. The streets were full of people as they came down for a peaceful protest, and maybe that was the reason they were ignored by the government. This act indeed has become a mere piece of paper prepared just for the sake of publicity and has no benefits and use as one hand it says one must not discriminate transgender persons anywhere but there is no provision for checking and safeguarding the same. The homophobic nation had no effect on itself and even after such act they are even now alienated in their very own nation as the rapidly growing society has left her mind in the old era!
Being a student, I have seen people teasing boys who like feminine stuff and call them with weird nicknames and humiliate them a lot. They alienate a person and make their life miserable just because of their choices. That’s why it always becomes hard for a person to accept a fact. People are always trained since the childhood that transgender is a form of abuse and it’s almost become some sort of taboo in many people’s minds. People are grown with this mindset and that’s why they tend to discriminate when the encounter transgender person. All this even raises difficulties for a person to accept the fact that he is a transgender.
Conclusion
The Act was required to deliver majorly few things. Firstly, it should have talked amending few laws that will help in providing equal status to the transgender community in front of law which will provide them to avail justice. Equal opportunities everywhere in the society and an authority to ensure the same. To provide identity without any long, impractical hefty procedure. The act was unable to or partially able to justify all this because of ill planning the authorities concerned.
We must feed one thing in our minds that we are not giving them any favors to them by giving them respect. It’s their birthright to be treated equally as we all are treated either by law or by society. We have no right to discriminate against them on the basis of their body structure. Everyone has a right to get equal opportunities in the social world, everyone deserves respect in this society and nobody can take that away from them, not us not our society!! They only desired to Earn the respect they deserve and equal imposition of laws for them which they were debarred from. I don’t know if the fact that they are no different from us is taking this long to understand by the people who claim to be “modernizing” and growing as more advanced day by day. People say they are not one of us and I really want to ask them how they are not? Don’t they have two legs? Two hands? A face? A heart?. One can’t alienate someone just because they are different. Rather than calling someone unnatural, why can’t we call them “unique” it’s far better. I would like to end by saying that the act is quite ironical and such issues must be treated same as we treat other issues in our society
References:
1. Writ petition (Civil) no 400 of 2012
2. “The Transgender Persons Bill Explained” (TheHindu,30November2019)https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/watch-all-about-thetransgender-persons-Bill/article30122229.ece accessed on 6 January 2021
About the author –
This article has been written by Animesh Raizada, Second year law student at JEMTEC School of Law, (Greater Noida).
