Trans People Not Allowed To Protest At Mahatma Gandhi’s Memorial
Dear Signers,
On 14 April, Ambedkar Jayanti, we wanted to protest at Rajghat to demand horizontal reservation for trans people. This was on the heels of a couple of state governments moving to provide trans people reservation under the OBC quota, which is not what we’re asking for.
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The day before our protest, police officials called me to deny us permission for an on-ground demonstration. I asked them to inform me of the denial of approval in writing, just as I had sought permission through a letter. But their written reply never came, and we reached the spot of the protest on the morning of 14 April.
Police officials were there to intercept us, and a couple of participants in our protest were denied permission to access the ladies' washroom inside the Rajghat Memorial. As a result, we could only submit a representation of our demands to the SHO of the local police station and protest for just about 20-25 minutes before being asked to vacate the premises.
There’ve been attempts by a few state governments to club transgender people with OBCs, which is already a very crowded category, to provide us with reservation.
As I’ve explained before, clubbing trans people with OBCs doesn't take cognisance of the overlapping nature of our identities and the framework of intersectionality. A trans person born into a Dalit family will be doubly discriminated against because of their gender and the caste they're born into. It’s unlikely that trans people will be able to reap the promised benefits of reservation if we're required to compete for seats with the over 5,000-6,000 castes/communities that fall under the OBC category in the list maintained by the Centre.
As per the findings of a government panel, less than 1% of OBC castes — just about 40 of the over 5,000 castes in the category — corner 50% of the reservation benefits in admissions to central educational institutions and recruitment to central services.
Including trans people under the OBC category will be more of a farce than the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. In both cases, cisgender people in the government have taken it upon themselves to frame policies for transgender people without consulting us.
Like Karnataka, other states should also move to provide trans people sub-reservation of maybe 1%-2% within the existing categories of reservation, namely – General, SC, ST, OBC and EWS.
I’m also fighting a case in the Delhi High Court, whereby I’m seeking the advertisement of separate vacancies for transgender persons in recruitment to teaching positions in schools in the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi (Delhi).
I was compelled to file this petition because all the teaching vacancies in public schools in Delhi-NCR are confined only to the binary ‘male’ and ‘female’ genders, which goes against the Trans Rights Act, 2019.
During the court proceedings, I learnt that the Delhi government wants to provide separate vacancies for trans people. But that file has been sitting with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The last hearing for this case was earlier this month when the Centre requested more time to submit its reply to the petition.
Trans people will have to keep fighting for horizontal reservation in education and employment because the state hasn’t shown a good conscience to uplift our deprived community. Please help me in sharing the word about this petition and our movement. Share it on WhatsApp by clicking here.