How Kerala left the country behind on transgender rights

The Kerala government on Thursday unveiled a landmark policy that enforces the constitutional rights of transgender communities. Over a year after the 2014 Supreme Court judgment that guaranteed such rights for the transgender people, Kerala became the first state in the country to do so. Chief secretary Jiji Thomson released the State Policy for Transgenders in Kerala 2015, handing the first copy of the policy to Akkai Padmashali, a leading transgender and human rights activist from Bengaluru. Addressing the press, the chief secretary called it a "watershed moment" in a country where "transgenders have not received their due in the state's developmental framework".

The policy was framed in tandem with the Supreme Court judgment and a report compiled by an expert committee constituted by the ministry of social justice and empowerment. According to the state government's data, the committee spoke to 4,000 of the estimated 25,000 transgender people in the state, 99 per cent male to female, 63 per cent married to females. The survey asked questions about awareness of one's body and access to health services, civil rights, the ability to live with dignity, self esteem among others, to come up with fairly dismal findings. Some of these affect basic yet essential sectors of health and education, with 54 per cent transgender students dropping out of school before class X, 51 per cent denied equal treatment in clinics and hospitals, and 89 per cent being mistreated at work. Ninety-six per cent of transgender did not raise their voices against violence, including sexual violence, because of their gender identities, and 76 per cent could not register their gender identity in applications for services, despite the SC judgment upholding their right to do so.

In this context, heeding the SC's call, the state government has pushed this policy that, at least on paper, enforces constitutional rights of all TGs, "including but not limited to female to male TGs, male to female TGs and Inter Sex people". Kerala has set up a transgender justice board and district wise justice committees to implement its policy. "South Indian states have always done better than north Indian ones when it comes to transgender rights," said Rituparna Borah, a Delhi-based queer rights activist. "Delhi has no such body, but Chennai has long had a transgender welfare board, and Karnataka has seen the transgender movement come together with the Dalit movement. Such policies give groups like ours entry points into the system."

For example, she said, her NGO used the SC judgment to be able to take up the case of Shivy, a trans male illegally kept captive in his home, in the Delhi high court, and secure his freedom. The judge presiding over the case, Siddharth Mridul, quoted extensively from the 2014 judgment in his own order. However, Borah points out a flaw in Kerala's policy, and the process in framing it, that has traditionally plagued trans rights movements; the glaring absence of trans male voices. The survey too, spoke to overwhelmingly male to female respondents. "Mostly, such policies speak largely for the hijra communities," said Borah, "which is good but those are not the only gender identities." She pointed out that while hijras have a certain amount of social and cultural space, trans men and genderqueer people don't. "Even the Prime Minister says the hijras and god's gift," said Borah, referring to the PM's recent speech about assimilating trans communities into the mainstream. This leaves out other identities, making them harder to establish. "People don't even see trans men as transgenders, they think only hijras are Tgs," said Borah.

However, she agreed that this policy had a lot of positives, and could allow recognised transgender groups to work for the betterment of all gender identities.