There are many topics that we don’t want to discuss in public. Transgender is also one of those topics. But do we really need to maintain silence about it and let the people judge a individual just by his/her look.
Transgender also referred as ‘Hijra’/’Kinnar’. Transgender people are people who have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex. Transgender people are sometimes called transsexual if they desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another. Transgender is also an umbrella term: in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex, it may include people who are not exclusively masculine or feminine. Other definitions of transgender also include people who belong to a third gender, or conceptualize transgender people as a third gender.
Talking about India, with different cultures and population of 1.311 billon there are 4.9 lakh transgender who have identified themselves as third gender category. But this record is just a small number coming from people who feel it’s ok to openly accept the fact that they differ from other to established genders.
What can be the reasons where in people are scared to reveal there identity. The very first reason is the family. When a transgender as kid is seen showing interest that are very much related to opposite gender(interest that are similar to girls interest) the family members force the kind to behave like a normal boy. The force can be mental or physical or in most of the case it is both and that to an extreme level. Due to this the kid grows introvert and most of the times would not have individual opinion. Families who are poor simply leave their kid with an orphanage or NGO.
Bearing the torture from the family, the kid if is been send to school is a funny topic for other kids studying with the kid .The people around make fun about the body language and overall behavior of the kid. Due to which most of the transgender kid avoid going to school college thus being illiterate. They have to go through lot of harassment and discrimination from the society. over 66% of the population identified as third gender lived in rural areas, very close to the 69% of the overall population that lives in villages. The census data also revealed the low literacy level in the community, just 46%, compared to 74% literacy in the general population.
The transgender community has lot of dark side they are illiterate so they can’t get proper jobs due to which we see them begging on the roads. They also have to go through various sexual harassment. They are forced into various sex rackets
Now with changing mentality even the transgender community has started fighting for their rights. There are various transgender people who have studies and achieved various big milestones and are self made. There are various people from this community who are running various NGO where they shelter the small kids which belong to their community and educate them.
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday created the "third gender" status for hijras or transgender. Earlier, they were forced to write male or female against their gender. The SC asked the Centre to treat transgender as socially and economically backward. The third gender people will be considered as OBCs, the SC and would be given all the educational and employment reservations that are associated with this category. There are also now allowed to take admission in an institute with third gender category also they can apply for job with same. There are also various there rules that are been made for this community.
But this is the governmental level, we as humans should consider this community as one of them and not try to suppress an individual who is trying to reveal its identity. Even the families should support and help such kids to deal with difficulties that they face in the society and also explain them how they are unique from other crowd.
