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ShareChennai: Sexual minorities hardly ever have it easy. Marginalised by the regular Joes and Janes, they live along the fringes of society. But there is light at the end of their despair-ridden tunnel, at least in Tamil Nadu, where the state government has introduced schemes to bring transgender people and eunuchs back into the mainstream.
The government, under the aegis of the Aaravani Welfare Board, an organisation for the welfare of transgender people (aaravani is Tamil for transgender), has launched a programme to help them undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS) at the hands of plastic surgeons, free of cost, at the government hospital attached to the Madras Medical College. The government hopes free surgeries will prevent transgender people from endangering their lives at the hands of quacks.
"Such surgeries cost Rs80,000 to Rs1.5 lakh. Breast implants cost Rs25,000 to Rs40,000," Dr V Jayaraman, a plastic surgeon, told DNA. "Urologists may be able to conduct such operations, but plastic surgeons typically achieve better results."
The government's measures include the adding of the letter T (transgender) to M (male) and F (female) in the gender option in all forms and ration cards, and the earmarking of Rs1 crore for group housing.
The Chennai municipal corporation has mooted a proposal for a Rs45-crore pilot project to construct public toilets for transgender people.
But it is the free surgery programme that is being considered the best among the measures.
"Most families refuse to accept a transgender person's dilemma and don't discuss the issue openly. The person leaves the family and ends up in a community of eunuchs," Dr Jayaraman said. "But through SRS, in which we reconstruct the female genitalia, a transwoman (a male who behaves like a female) can be given a wholly feminine identity. We have completed 12 surgeries and there are 50 registrations."
R Jeeva, founder and managing trustee, Transgender Rights Association, said, "This augurs well for the health of transgender people who would otherwise go to quacks in places like Dindigul in Tamil Nadu and Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh.
"Now that the government has launched this scheme, transgender people have a legal and professional option for sex reconstruction."
