We were only accepted as citizens of this country in 2014, when the NALSA judgement affirmed the fundamental rights of transgender people. But eight years after that landmark judgement, when I had my first shot at honourable employment as a trans woman, I was unceremoniously dismissed. 

Why?

Because my students and fellow teachers had come to know of my gender identity. A few days before my dismissal, a student had called me a ‘hijra’ and smirked, as he passed me by in the school’s corridor. Despite being traumatised by his remark, I tried sensitising him about the rights of transgender people. 

But with my dismissal within a week of joining, my students will go ahead in their lives without any exposure to the third gender. They’ll continue seeing us as ‘aliens’. 

Our governments, or our society at large, has made little to no progress in bringing transgender people into the mainstream and helping us shed the stigma associated with our gender identity.

The NALSA judgement had held that transgender people were among the socially and economically backward classes, and needed to be granted reservation in educational institutions and employment. 

But the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, made no mention of providing us with reservation. Ours is a community that’s trying to emerge from years of societal oppression and familial desertion, whose members have had to depend on begging and sex work for survival. Yet, our policymakers would rather push for reservation for a new category of their own creation — economically weaker sections — even go to court for the same, since it’s their vote bank. 

My friend Ayesha achieved an All India Rank of 11 in the entrance exam for a postgraduate course in Embryology at AIIMS. Yet, she didn’t get through, because there were just six seats for the course. If even a single seat had been reserved for transgender persons, Ayesha would have joined the league of very few transgender people who’re in professional life and playing their part in changing our society’s attitude towards the third gender. 

For my friend Yashika, entrance examinations and job interviews are uncomfortable spaces where she struggles to explain the difference between her gender assigned at birth and the gender identity in her transgender certificate. By the time she’s able to explain the same, cis-gender candidates have been chosen over her. 

Whether it be in school and college campuses or hostels, transgender people brave verbal and even physical harassment. We lack separate washrooms, but a trans woman also encounters suspicion when she wants to access the ladies washroom. 

Transgender persons trying to create a dignified life for themselves are being held back, because the government has failed miserably in enabling our access to education and employment. 

We urgently need state governments, and the Centre, to step in and introduce horizontal reservation in educational institutions and government jobs. 

By horizontal reservation, I mean, a certain percentage of seats, perhaps 1%-2%, should be reserved for trans persons within each of the existing categories, namely General, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Economically Weaker Sections. We don't want a new category to be created for us, but instead, want some space in the existing brackets. Because the transgender person who belongs to the Scheduled Castes category, has been doubly discriminated against throughout their life. This is what we mean by horizontal reservation!

If 98% of India’s transgender folks have been denied jobs, and over 60% have never attended school, then we should know that our policymakers cannot afford to overlook the need for affirmative action for this community. 

Sign our petition, because Jane, Ayesha and Yashika cannot bear the stigma associated with their gender identity anymore.