Voter registration continues to be an uphill task for thousands of transgenders living across Maharashtra. Going by the latest figures, only 10% transgenders have registered with the election commission. According to latest figures released by the poll panel, 1,071 transgenders have enrolled as voters so far.
The numbers are in sharp contrast with the figures issued by AIDS society of Maharashtra that claims there are as many as 10,000 transgenders in the state. Community workers, however, claim that the actual number of transgenders living in Maharashtra would be much higher.
In last six months, Manisha Sheikh, a transgender working with Humsafar Trust, has made three failed attempts to register as a voter. Her inability to arrange for a residence proof for herself has made it an unachievable task.
"First, its not easy for most of us to find a permanent accommodation. Most of us live in rented homes and landlords are reluctant to get into an official agreement with us to enable us to have a residence proof. In last election, a senior election officer did issue us a letter allowing us to register through the trust. However, he never conveyed the same to his ward officers who rejected our submission," said Sheikh who works as a coordinator and manage 1000 transgenders living in Sion area.
"In last six months, with my best efforts, I could only get 100 odd transgenders registered with the election commission," Sheikh added.
While election commission officials blame the community for not coming forward to register as voters, most transgenders say getting documents like 'residential proofs, identity proof, age proof etc" is tedious and at times an embarrassing process.
At times, they would be blatantly told to stay away from the elections and hear snide remarks like, "why do you even need to vote" from officials.
Lack of awareness amongst the community about its right to register under the "others" category is another big factor for poor registration.
"The election commission should hold workshops or awareness camps with the community to tell them about their voting rights. Many members of the community still do not know that there is a special category of "others" under which they can register," said Urmi Jadhav, a transgender associated with Humsafar trust.
Another complication that the transgender community faces is that many documents such as birth certificates are registered with their male names. Registering new documents in their adopted names results in an identity crisis in government records. They are then required to go personally to the Gazette Office to get their names officially changed in all other documents as well.
"Transgenders are uneasy about going to government offices so we suggested that officials to come to our office and update documents. However, they declined," said Sonal Gyani, a project advocate with Humsafar.
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