New Delhi
(AFP) - India's highest court ruled Tuesday that a person can be legally
recognised as gender-neutral, a landmark judgement that raises hopes of an end
to discrimination against several million transgenders and eunuchs.
The Supreme
Court also said transgenders should be included in government welfare schemes
offered to other minority groups in a bid to pull them out of the impoverished
margins of Indian society.
"Transgenders
are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other
rights," Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan told the court while handing down the
ruling.
An Indian
transgender dancer puts on
makeup before a performance for a
function in
Kolkata on April 30, 2013
(AFP Photo/Dibyangshu Sarkar)
|
The case
was filed in 2012 by a group of petitioners including prominent eunuch and
activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi seeking recognition for the transgender population
and equal rights under the law.
Transgenders
and eunuchs or hijras -- a term for cross-dressers and men who have been
castrated -- often live on the extreme fringes of India's culturally
conservative society.
Transgenders
are often seen as inauspicious and even cursed in traditional Hindu culture.
Many resort to prostitution, begging or menial jobs that leave them mired in
poverty.
The ruling,
hailed as landmark by activists, comes just months after the same court
reinstated a ban on gay sex and sparked accusations it was dragging the country
back to the 19th century.
'Proud to
be Indian'
"Today,
for the first time I feel very proud to be an Indian," activist Tripathi
told reporters outside the court.
"Today
my sisters and I feel like real Indians and we feel so proud because of the
rights granted to us by the Supreme Court."
In this
photograph taken on October 3,
2013, Indian transgenders attend a
seminar for
the transgender community
in Mumbai (AFP Photo/Punit Paranjpe)
|
Germany
last year passed a law allowing babies born with characteristics of both sexes
to be registered as neither male nor female. Several countries including
Australia, Germany and Nepal also allow people to have an X on their passport
rather than male or female.
In its
judgement, the court in India instructed state and federal governments to allow
transgenders to identify themselves on official documents as a third gender.
It also
ruled governments should include transgenders in "socially and
economically backward" groups that are given quotas in jobs and education,
said the lawyer for the petitioners Sanjeev Bhatnagar.
Transgenders
also have the right under the constitution to be given access to medical care
and other facilities regardless of their gender, the court said.
"Direction
has been given to all the state governments and the central government to
comply with the direction of the court to give them reservations and to
identify them and give them their rights," Bhatnagar told reporters.
Some state
governments, such as southern Tamil Nadu, and official bodies already recognise
transgenders, including the Election Commission which ruled in 2009 that they
could be listed as "others" on electoral rolls and voter identify
cards.
In this
photograph taken on April 30,
2013, Indian transgender dancers put on
makeup
before a performance in Kolkata
(AFP Photo/Dibyangshu Sarkar)
|
Transgenders
are classified as people who have either had sex change operations or who
regard themselves as the opposite of their born gender, according to Sanjay
Srivastava, professor of sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth in New
Delhi.
However
only 28,341 are registered with the Election Commission for the parliamentary
elections currently taking place, highlighting the fear and stigma many face.
The ruling
comes after the court's decision in December banning gay sex. Gay sex had been
effectively legalised in 2009 when the High Court ruled that the colonial-era
penal code prohibiting "carnal intercourse against the order of
nature" was an infringement of fundamental rights.
Gay sex has
long been a taboo subject in India, where homophobic tendencies abound and many
still regard being gay as a mental illness.
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