Members of V-Can, a network of organisations working with sexual minorities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum and Sangama, civil society organisations that work with transgender communities, brought out this report, that details initiatives that the communities have themselves taken for their betterment.
Activists and members of transgender communities from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka released a report based on the progress of transgenders rights in India on Thursday, in New Delhi. They did so on the eve of the Parliament's monsoon session, which begins from July 21, so as to appeal to all parliamentarians to support and enable the passage of the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill 2014, a private member's bill that is to be tabled.
Members of V-Can, a network of organisations working with sexual minorities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum and Sangama, civil society organisations that work with transgender communities, brought out this report, that details initiatives that the communities have themselves taken for their betterment. However, they stressed on government support for implementing crucial aspects of 2014's landmark Supreme Court judgment that gave transgender communities the right to choose their gender, especially those concerning education, health and livelihood.
According to Rajesh Umadevi, Director of Sangama and Sheetal, a transgender woman with V-Can, both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been on the forefront of implementing government schemes, however much remains to be done. One of their crucial demands was to set up state-wise transgender welfare boards, make them statutory bodies, and not merely advisory, and make sure that people from the transgender communities were included in all consultation and decision making processes, as they knew better than anyone the grassroot realities.
Veena, a transgender Dalit woman associated with Sangama also stressed on the worrying health budget cuts, as these have adversely affected their HIV/AIDS outreach programme, leaving them short of supplies, and their staffers without salaries.
The Sangama activists also emphasised that government schemes cannot make transgender welfare only about hijras, as that was a very limited identity. Holding up Karnataka as an example, they said that all genderqueer identities, such as be it intersex, male to female, female to male transitions, needed to be recognised and supported, so as not to create a hierarchy of identities within the already marginalised.
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