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The Two-Way

International, in india, landmark ruling recognizes transgender citizens.

Julie McCarthy

An Indian eunuch in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar dances Tuesday to celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling recognizing a third gender category. Biswaranjan Rout/AP hide caption

An Indian eunuch in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar dances Tuesday to celebrate the Supreme Court's ruling recognizing a third gender category.

India now has a third gender.

The Supreme Court has recognized the country's transgender community as being in a third neutral category — neither male nor female.

In handing down the ruling, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan said, "Transgenders are citizens of this country ... and recognition as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue."

Article 15 of India's Constitution guarantees that no state can discriminate against citizens on the basis of religion, caste, race or sex.

The decision by the two-judge bench applies to what in India are traditionally known by the Hindi word hijras . The term is loosely used to include eunuchs and transvestites. The court stated, "transgender is generally described as an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to their biological sex."

Activists say because the transgender population has not been legally recognized, its members have been ostracized, abused and forced into prostitution. Many eke out an existence as sex workers or beggars.

India's hijras are easily spotted on the street and can be found wending their way through traffic at intersections, clad in colorful saris and bright lipstick. They tap on car windows, begging or sometimes demanding a bit of change.

Estimated to number between 2 and 3 million, they have long been a prominent but marginalized part of Indian culture.

Hijras are deprived of jobs, education and health care; turned away at hospitals, limited by the practice of male and female wards. India had taken steps to ensure their recognition when India's Election Commission earlier allowed a third gender of "other" on voter registration forms for the national elections now taking place.

But the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed concern over transgenders being harassed in society and said "it was the right of every human being to choose their gender."

It directed the government to bring them into the mainstream, ordering it to set aside quotas for jobs and education for transgender individuals, bringing them in line with the benefits already afforded other minority groups and lower castes. The court said hijras will be entitled to "all other rights," including passports, voter cards and driving licenses.

The prominent transgender activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi initially brought the suit in 2012 seeking equal rights. She said the decision was hard-won in this traditionally conservative country. "Today, I feel a proud citizen of India," Tripathi said.

But while the court has declared discrimination against the transgender community illegal, whether the practice will end is far from certain. Formidable obstacles remain in the way sexuality is perceived in India.

As recently as December, India's Supreme Court reinstated a ban on gay sex, a colonial-era law dating back to 1861. The widely criticized decision reversed the Delhi High Court, which had ruled the law prohibiting "carnal intercourse against the laws of nature" an infringement of fundamental rights. But the Supreme Court justices said the provision would hold until Parliament chose to amend it, as it was a matter left for legislators and not the judiciary.

Amnesty International praised Tuesday's ruling as reaffirming "constitutional values of inclusion and equality" but said it "should provide the impetus for a new government to repeal" what it called the "absurd law" criminalizing sex between consenting same-sex partners.

Religious groups across India said the Supreme Court's December ruling ought to be respected. A senior leader with the Hindu-nationalist BJP party argued that overturning it would be illegal, immoral and against the ethos of the Indian culture.

With polls predicting the BJP, the country's main opposition party, on the verge of coming to power, transgender activists are not letting down their guard. They say the battle today may have been won, but the war is far from over.

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Explained: Major Challenges Faced By Transgenders in India

Transgender is the term used for people whose gender identity or gender expression does not conform to the sex that they were assigned to at birth. sex and gender differ from each other..

Transgender is the term used for people whose gender identity or gender expression does not conform to the sex that they were assigned to at birth. Sex and gender differ from each other. Sex is only categorised as two types- male and female. This sex is identified by the reproductive organ that an individual is born with. Gender on the other hand refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours and identities. It has men, women and also gender diverse people. Gender cannot be categorized as two types- men and women like sex.

India is a country that does not accept the gender diversity concept and is also not accepting towards the LGBTQ people. There is still a lot of taboo in our society when it comes to transgenders. The government has given “The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in 2019. This recognizes the right to the self-perceived gender identity of individuals. The transgender citizens also have the constitutional right to register themselves under the third gender category. This was provided to them because of the abuse and oppression that they were facing.

Because transgenders are different from the “normal” and socially accepted gender, they are subject to social oppression and physical violence. They have lack of education, face unemployment, homelessness, lack health care facilities, discrimination, etc. They faced discrimination as their gender was not recognized by the society and the government. Because of this discrimination, the third gender law was introduced.

The other issues that they face are- they lack family support. Once they identify as a certain gender and decide to transition, because it differs from the socially accepted ideas, the family also thinks that they are outside the “normal” and force them to leave their home by the society. They also receive unwanted attention in the public spaces because of their different appearance. This could affect their mental health greatly.

A great shortcoming of the bill passed in 2019 was - it proposes a screening committee of experts who issue the identity certificates as the third gender to the transgender people which could make them vulnerable to abuse. Another issue is that, begging is a prime source of income for these people in India because other jobs are very hard to succeed in. This law criminalizes it which makes them suffer more.

An immediate concern for the trans community is the lack of public amenities. They do not have access to the public toilets and public spaces. They face issues in prisons, hospitals, etc. The trans people are considered as a stigma and as people who need to be avoided because the society has stereotyped them as dangerous people who we should not associate with.

Because of the lack of opportunities provided to them, the trans people are often forced to join the sex industry as prostitutes. Also, one in two transgender individuals are sexually abused according to data.

Trans people need better laws that protect them and frees them from the stigma surrounding them.

REFERENCES:

What are the problems faced by transgender community in India? (July 5, 2022). Retrieved from.

Transgender Community and Challenges. (n.d.). Retrieved from.

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Exploring the discrimination and stigma faced by transgender in Chennai city–A community-based qualitative study

Gayathri kumar.

1 Research Fellow, Trichy SRM Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India

2 Associate Professor, Trichy SRM Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India

Deodatt M. Suryawanshi

3 Professor, Trichy SRM Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India

4 Associate Professor, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India

Divya Rajaseharan

5 Assistant Professors, Trichy SRM Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India

Kalaipriya Gunasekaran

Background:.

Transgender people experience widespread prejudice discrimination, violence and other harms of stigma and trans-phobia (dislike of or prejudice against trans-sexual or transgender people). To study various modes in which transgenders experience the stigma and discrimination and to understand situations and circumstances under which they are vulnerable toward stigma and discrimination.

Materials and Methods:

The present study was a mixed-method study which was conducted during the months of January to June 2019 among 43 study participants. Focus group discussion and in-depth interview was conducted with these participants with subsequent transcription. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used for analysis.

Transgenders face discrimination and stigma in various setting including education, employment, healthcare, and various public setting. Difficulties in getting government identity cards (ID), facing difficulties in changing ID cards after transition, discrimination in getting bank loan, homelessness, travelling rejections were considered as major obstacles and discrimination by the study participants.

Conclusion:

Multilevel interventions are needed for transgender populations, including legal protections, improvement of various settings. Inclusive measures should be taken to improve their status focusing on social stigma coupled with psychological pain and economic hardship.

The third gender, that is, “Transgender” signifies those individuals who are different in their biological constructions. They are different for the stereotype gender roles. Their gender makes them different and compelled to face discrimination in society. According to the definition, transgender, often shortened as trans, is an umbrella term; in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex (trans men and trans women), it may also include people who are non-binary or genderqueer.[ 1 ] Despite of all the constitutional rights, they are denied to have their basic rights like Right to Personal Liberty, Freedom of Expression, and Right to Education, Empowerment, and Right against discrimination, exploitation and violence etc.[ 2 ] The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (UTS) is the largest survey examining the experiences of transgender people in the United States, with 27,715 respondents from all 50 states, provides a detailed look at the experiences of transgender people.[ 3 ] There is a pervasive pattern of discrimination and prejudice against transgendered people within society. Both economic discrimination and experiencing violence could be the result of a larger social climate that severely sanctions people for not conforming to society’s norms concerning gender; as such, both would be strongly associated with each other. Most of the studies have relied on fairly limited measures of discrimination, focusing primarily on workplace discrimination[ 4 ] not exploring in detail on the overall discrimination and stigma faced. We are exploring the importance of the measures to reduce discrimination, stigma and violence in various settings including education, employment, healthcare, and public settings which has not been explored in detail in India in the past. This research explores the lived realities of transgenders who enter the Hijra community and the various forms of social exclusion that these individuals face.

To explore various modes in which transgenders experience the stigma and discrimination and to understand situations and circumstances under which they are vulnerable toward stigma and discrimination.

Materials and Methods

The present study was a qualitative study done in Chennai city focusing mainly on the in depth interview. A total of 8 focus group discussions and 14 in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted along with free listing and pile sorting. The study was conducted during the months of January to June 2019 among 43 study participants (Transgender of all age groups).Exclusion criteria being cisgenders, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, non-consenting transgender.They were recruited using a non-probability snowball sampling technique. The study participants were interviewed at the location and at the time of their convenience and after obtaining written informed consent. Institutional ethics committee clearance was obtained before start of study.

Qualitative methodology

To explore various modes in which transgenders experience the stigma and discrimination and to understand situations and circumstances under which they are vulnerable toward stigma and discrimination investigators conducted a total eight focus group discussions and 14 in-depth Interview (IDI). Also, free listing and pile sorting were used to collect relevant qualitative data.

The following steps were done for Focussed Group Discussion (FGD):

• A topic guide was prepared
• The study participants were chosen by snowball sampling method
• Sampling was done mainly through the contacts of known transgenders selected throughout Chennai city
• The participants were requested to join the scheduled interview and discussions at a specific time convenient for them also
• Necessary arrangements were made for uninterrupted FGD
• Written informed consent was obtained for participation and audio recording of the proceedings was done
• FGDs were conducted with the transgenders who are the study participants, who were willing to participate.
• Each FGD lasted for about 45 minutes.
• Each FGD comprised a maximum of 10 participants (minimum 8 participants) from the Community. The study population comprised the transgenders of various age groups.
• Data was collected till information got saturated

Topic guide and interview schedule for the FGD and IDI

The analysis of FGDs was done through a conventional content analysis approach. Data were analyzed and managed simultaneously by sketching ideas, taking field notes, summarizing field notes, identifying codes, reducing codes into themes in Microsoft Excel, and finally developing categories. Smith’s salience score was calculated and the reasons with higher Smith’s S values were pile sorted. Smith’s S value refers to the importance, representativeness, or prominence of items to individuals or to the group. The analysis of free list and pile sort data was done using Anthropac software.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was also used for this research as it involves sensitive psychological issues.

A total of 43 participants throughout Chennai city participated in the study through 8 FGD (8–10 participants in each FGD), 14 IDI, free listing, and pile sorting. The majority of the participants are from the age group 35–45 (48.5%), followed by 25–35 (41.1%). The majority belonged to Hindu religion (61.7%) and more than half of them had primary level of education (51.4%). Majority of the women were involved in begging whereas there was one professional who is not working. To explore about the various discrimination and stigma faced, the free listing exercise was done [ Table 1 ].

Perceived discrimination and stigma among transgender population

A multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis were done with pile sort data to get a collective picture of discrimination and sigma faced by transgenders. Results were categorized as: “school dropout’, physical bullying”, “lack of family support”, “lack of job opportunities”, “ harassment in work place”, “ negligence in healthcare setting”, “homelessness”, “travelling rejections”, “difficulty in accessing public toilet”, “ difficulties in getting ID cards”, “ challenges in taking loans”.

Focussed Group Discussion

A total of 8 FGDs were conducted to explore more about the situations and circumstances under which they are vulnerable toward stigma and discrimination. Totally 43 people participated and each FGD had 8–10 participants. The results of the FGD are reported according to the themes in [ Table 2 ]. Main themes and categories discussed in FGD.

Response for circumstances under which transgender population face discrimination: Each domain discussed in FGD

In-Depth Interview

A total of 14 depth interviews were conducted until the point of saturation. The themes that emerged from the IDIs are presented below as headings and supported by quotes from the participants. Each quote is accompanied by the occupation and age of the participant in parentheses [ Table 3 ].

Themes and verbatim obtained from in depth interview:

In the present study, transgenders admit that they face discrimination and stigma in various setting including education, employment, healthcare, and various public settings. Also difficulties in getting government identity cards (ID), facing difficulties in changing ID cards after transition, discrimination in getting bank loan, homelessness, travelling rejections were considered as major obstacles and discrimination by the study participants. Perceived violence and stigma among our study participants are comparable to the other study findings from various setting.[ 5 , 6 , 7 ]

During the study one of the study participants discussed that they need more peer support and opportunities to earn which is similar to the findings from the study conducted in Mumbai city.[ 8 ] Issues faced by our study participants in various settings are compared to the study results of Indian research where lack of family support leading to various psychosocial consequences are highlighted.[ 9 ] Our study participants admit that they face discrimination in accessing healthcare which is also highlighted in another research article from India[ 10 ] where socio-economic barriers, lack of health insurance, exclusion from social protection schemes, and health systems barriers are addressed.

One of the major strength of our study is we included transgender population from various sectors covering most of the occupations. There are also limitations of the study where coping strategies for the various discrimination and stigma is not explored to greater extent. Also social desirability bias when reporting sensitive information, and some nuances may have been overlooked in translating interviews.

As evident from the qualitative analysis, transgender individuals have specific healthcare and social needs; however, they face multiple obstacles to accessing quality healthcare ranging from social stigma and discrimination to lack of awareness and inferior services. Community mobilization interventions offer a promising vulnerability reduction strategy for transgenders, and could be effective in safeguarding transgender rights and reducing disease vulnerability. Strengthening legal protection, inclusive measures along with multilevel interventions to address transgender issues is needed.

Key points and take home message

Since not much research especially qualitative studies have been done among transgenders from various sectors, this article will definitely contribute for their welfare measures. Challenges and obstacles faced in various settings have been explored in detail. There is an imperative need for enhancing interventions along with legal measures to address specific issues.

Declaration of patient consent

The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form, the patient(s) has/have given his/her/their consent for his/her/their images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The patients understand that their names and initials will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal their identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

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Key findings on Indian attitudes toward gender roles

Indian adults nearly universally say it is important for women to have the same rights as men, including eight-in-ten who say this is very important. At the same time, however, there are circumstances when Indians feel men should receive preferential treatment: 80% agree with the idea that “when there are few jobs, men should have more rights to a job than women,” according to a new Pew Research Center report .

The report, based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults fielded between late 2019 and early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic , looks at how Indians view gender roles at home and in society more generally. The survey, which was also the basis for a 2021 report on religion in India , was conducted by local interviewers in 17 languages and covered nearly all of India’s states and union territories.

Here are key findings from the report.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to find out how Indians view gender roles in families and society. It is based on the March 2022 report “ How Indians View Gender Roles in Families and Society ,” and is part of the Center’s most comprehensive, in-depth exploration of Indian public opinion to date. For this report, we surveyed 29,999 Indian adults ages 18 and older living in 26 Indian states and three union territories. The sample included interviews with 22,975 Hindus, 3,336 Muslims, 1,782 Sikhs, 1,011 Christians, 719 Buddhists, 109 Jains and 67 respondents who belong to another religion or are religiously unaffiliated. Many findings from the survey in India were previously published in “ Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation ,” which looked in detail at religious and national identity, religious beliefs and practices, and attitudes among religious communities. The survey also included several questions on gender roles in Indian society, but these questions were not analyzed in the previous report and are now being published for the first time. Interviews for this nationally representative survey were conducted face-to-face in 17 languages from Nov. 17, 2019, to March 23, 2020.

Respondents were selected using a probability-based sample design that would allow for robust analysis of all major religious groups in India, as well as all major regional zones. Data was weighted to account for the different probabilities of selection among respondents, and to align with demographic benchmarks for the Indian adult population from the 2011 census.

Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

International survey data referenced in this analysis can be found at the following links: 2019 Global Attitudes Survey , 2015 Global Attitudes Survey , Central and Eastern Europe , Latin America . Each survey’s methodology can also be found via these links.

Indians broadly accept women as political leaders. India has a long history of women holding political power, from the 1966 election of Indira Gandhi , one of the world’s first woman prime ministers, to other well-known figures, such as Jayalalitha , Mamata Banerjee and Sushma Swaraj .

The survey results reflect this comfort with women in politics. Most adults say that women and men make equally good political leaders (55%) or that women generally make better leaders than men (14%). Only a quarter of Indian adults take the position that men tend to make better political leaders than women.

While most Indians say that men and women should share some family responsibilities, many still support traditional gender roles. For instance, 62% of adults say both men and women should be responsible for taking care of children, while roughly a third of adults (34%) feel that child care should be handled primarily by women. Similarly, a slim majority (54%) say that both men and women in families should be responsible for earning money, yet many Indians (43%) see this as mainly the obligation of men.

Meanwhile, nearly nine-in-ten Indians (87%) completely or mostly agree with the notion that “a wife must always obey her husband.” This includes a majority of Indians (64%) who completely agree with this sentiment. Women are only modestly less likely than men to say that wives should obey their husbands in all situations, and most Indian women express total agreement with this sentiment (61% vs. 67% among men). (Throughout this report, differences in opinion between men and women are modest. In other words, Indian women typically are not much more likely than Indian men to express egalitarian views on gender roles.)

An overwhelming majority of Indian adults say it is very important for families to have both sons and daughters, and a substantial share are accepting of sex-selective abortion. Indians are united in the view that it is very important for a family to have at least one son (94%) and, separately, a daughter (90%). Historically in Indian society, though, families have tended to place higher value on their sons than their daughters, a custom broadly referred to as “ son preference .” One enduring manifestation of son preference has been the illegal practice of sex-selective abortions – using ultrasound or other tests to learn the sex of a fetus and terminating the pregnancy if the fetus is female.

The survey finds that four-in-ten Indians say it is either “completely acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable” to “get a checkup using modern methods to balance the number of girls and boys in the family,” a euphemism that connotes sex-selective abortion. In contrast, roughly half of adults (53%) say that this practice is either somewhat or completely unacceptable .

Most Indians (63%) say sons should be primarily responsible for parents’ last rites or burial rituals, although attitudes differ significantly across religious groups. Religious funeral practices for loved ones are widely seen as very important in India, and at least according to Hindu tradition , sons must perform last rites for a parent to ensure freedom for the soul in the afterlife.

Most Muslims (74%), Jains (67%) and Hindus (63%) say sons should be primarily responsible for funeral rituals, but far fewer Sikhs (29%), Christians (44%) and Buddhists (46%) expect this from sons. (Muslims and Christians were asked about “burial rituals,” while all other respondents were asked about “last rites.”) Instead, Sikhs, Christians and Buddhists are more likely to say that both sons and daughters should be responsible for their parents’ last rites. Very few Indians, regardless of religion, say daughters should be primarily responsible for funeral rituals.

Muslims are more likely than other Indians to support traditional gender roles in families, while Sikhs are often the least likely community to hold such views. For example, while most Indian Muslims (61%) say that men in a family should be primarily responsible for earning money, just 17% of Sikhs say this. And Muslims are more than twice as likely as Sikhs to assign sons the primary responsibility of caring for aging parents (43% vs. 17%).

Indians favor teaching boys to respect women as a way to improve women’s safety. As described in a previous Pew Research Center report , roughly three-quarters of Indian adults (76%) say violence against women is a “very big problem” in their country. Police cases registered as “crimes against women” nearly doubled between 2010 and 2019 , and rapes and murders of women have led to massive protests across India . The survey asked respondents which of two options is more important to improve the safety of women in their community: teaching boys to respect all women or teaching girls to behave appropriately.

About half of Indians (51%) say it is more important to teach boys to respect all women, while roughly a quarter (26%) say it is more important to teach girls to behave appropriately. An additional quarter of Indian adults don’t take a clear position between those two options, instead voicing that some combination of the two approaches is necessary, that improved law and order through policing will improve the situation, or that women are already safe.

Compared with people in other countries around the world, Indians have relatively traditional views on gender roles. Although Indian adults are roughly in line with the global median in their support for equal rights for women, by two other measures the Indian public appears much more conservative, according to a series of other surveys conducted by the Center in recent years.

Only one out of 61 countries surveyed has a higher share of adults than in India who agree completely with the notion that men should have greater rights to a job than women when jobs are scarce. And just two out of 34 countries surveyed exceed India in the shares who say a marriage is more satisfying if the husband provides for the family and the wife takes care of the house and children. On this question, the percentage of Indians who take this view (40%) is well above the global median (23%).

Note: Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

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Jonathan Evans is a senior researcher focusing on religion research at Pew Research Center .

Many around the globe say it’s important their leader stands up for people’s religious beliefs

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Transgender Victimogenesis in India: A Review

22 Pages Posted: 30 Aug 2024 Publication Status: Under Review

Priyadharshini Kalyanasundaram

Vellore Institute of Technology

Kubendran Ayyavoo

Transgender victimogenesis in India is a complex subject due to multitudinous perspectives on gender identity. Significant means of conflict of norms on transgender identity often led to exposure to various forms of discrimination, violence, and abuse. From family to society, a large number of people share a substantial percentage of making them vulnerable to becoming victims of crime. This paper examines various factors that cause victimization and the victim's proneness towards the transgender community, it includes analyzing Social and institutional discrimination and Exclusion factors, which adversely affect every transgender personal and social life, resulting in lifelong victimization. To protect transgender rights from multiple crimes, it is essential to understand transgender victimization from multiple perspectives.

Keywords: victimogenesis, transgender, victimization

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Vellore Institute of Technology ( email )

Department of Physics School of Advanced Sciences Chennai, TN 600127 India

Kubendran Ayyavoo (Contact Author)

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The Ungendered Self: Sex Reassignment, the Third Gender, and Gender Fluidity in India

• First Online: 23 March 2018

Cite this chapter

• Katherine Pratt Ewing 4 &
• Baishakhi Banerjee Taylor 5  

Part of the book series: Culture, Mind, and Society ((CMAS))

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In this chapter, Ewing and Taylor examine how individuals in India negotiate contradictory and politicized possibilities for narrating the ambivalently gendered self. Ewing and Taylor focus on members of the Bengali middle class ( bhadralok ) who have gone through sex reassignment surgery to transition from the status of “man” to “woman.” They examine tensions among three different ways of understanding gender and its relationship to the self: the concepts of transsexual/transgender, the third gender, and gender fluidity. They focus on middle-class transitions because the  bhadralo k were shaped by colonial ideologies of power and gender. Today middle-class transsexuals must negotiate a transnational medical discourse that generates a rationale for SRS in terms of a rigid gender binary, which is in tension with Hindu traditions of gender fluidity.

We would like to thank participants in the Lemelson/SPA Conference “Culture and Political Subjectivities” at Columbia University for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this essay, especially Murphy Halliburton, who served as discussant, Jack Friedman, and Claudia Strauss.

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Ewing, K.P., Taylor, B.B. (2018). The Ungendered Self: Sex Reassignment, the Third Gender, and Gender Fluidity in India. In: Strauss, C., Friedman, J. (eds) Political Sentiments and Social Movements. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72341-9_7

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