After a wait of almost one year, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE) has sent the new drafted policy on transgenders — commonly known as Hijras — to the Ministry of law for assent.
“We are ready with a draft policy to safeguard the interests of the transgenders and have sent it to the Ministry of law for their comments. Although the broad policy was drafted a year ago, but we were stuck as we were awaiting clarity on the definition of the term from the Supreme Court (SC) before extending welfare schemes to the transgenders,” said an official from MSJE.
“We have placed a petition before the SC requesting them for clarity on the definition of transgender, homosexuals and bisexuals. But we also wanted a policy in place such that once we have a clear definition, we can dole out the policy without much time lapse,” he said.
The Ministry is waiting for the SC to clarify whether it would want to include gays and lesbians in the third sex category. In a judgment delivered in April last year, the SC directed the Govt to treat transgenders as ‘socially and educationally backward classes and extend reservation in admissions and public appointments to them under the Other Backward Class category.