For over nine months, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE) is ready with a policy on transgenders — commonly known as hijras — but it is unable to move forward because ‘transgenders’ are not defined. The Ministry is waiting for the Supreme Court (SC) to clarify whether it would want to include gays and lesbians in the third sex category.
In a judgement delivered in April last year, the apex court directed the Government to treat transgenders as ‘socially and educationally backward classes.’ The SC asked the Government to extend reservation to them under the Other Backward Class category for admissions in educational institutions and for public appointments.
“We are ready with a draft policy to safeguard the interest of the transgenders but we are stuck because so far we are awaiting clarity on the definition of the term from the SC before extending welfare schemes to them,” said Vijay Sampla, Minister of State, MSJE, in an interaction with the media.
“We have requested for clarity on the definition of transgender, homosexuals and bisexuals. There was a problem in the definition. Now, we have placed petition before the SC seeking clarity on this,” he said.
In an affidavit submitted in July 2014, the Government had defined transgenders as “all persons whose own sense of gender does not match with the gender assigned to them at birth.” The affidavit said, includes “trans-men and trans-women”, “gender queers” and a number of “socio cultural identities, such as kinnars (and) hijras”.
In its April ruling, the SC had dwelt on both biological characteristics and gender attributes, including one’s self-image, the deep psychological or emotional sense of sexual identity and character. Sampla said that without definite guidelines on the definition of the term “transgender,” it would be very difficult to the Government to extend benefits to them.
“We don’t want people to misuse the benefits. As we have seen in previous schemes offered for people belonging to scheduled castes, no sooner than the reservations were announced, there was a sudden rush for caste certification as people only wanted to avail benefits,” said Sampla.
The Government is also in a fix as they do not have a count of actual number of transgenders in the country. The electoral roll date of the Election Commission of India States that a total number of 23,019 people have registered themselves under “Others” category.
In the proposed policy to safeguard the rights of the transgender community, the MSJE has offered child support and study allowances.
The Government proposes to offer a financial support plan for parents of transgender kids, making them eligible for Rs1,000 a month as child support till they reach 18 years. The parents, whose yearly family income cannot exceed Rs2.5 lakh, have to submit an affidavit declaring that they have a child showing “gender non-conforming behaviour.”
To help the transgender children support their middle-level school education (classes VII to X), the ministry has proposed to offer a monthly scholarship of Rs150 for day scholars and Rs350 for those who stay in hostels. The scholarship will be reviewed every 10 months. For higher education, the MSJE has proposed a monthly assistance of Rs550 for day scholars and Rs1,200 to those living in hostels to pursue college education in India. The draft also includes skill development aid and Rs1,000 as a monthly pension for transgender persons from the age of 40 till 60.