An Overview Of The Transgender Rights In India

Aarthi Shankar, BA LLB(Hons), Saveetha School of Law , Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS) Saveetha University, Chennai-77

ABSTRACT

People who has gender identity or gender expression which differs the sex that they were assigned at birth are knows as transgenders. These people face lots of challenges and problems in society and rights are not granted to them equally. Every person in this world deserves to be respected despite any religion, caste or gender. Transgender people should also be treated equally and they should deserve all the right in the constitution as normal human rights. Transgender people are still struggling for their survival and also experiencing discrimination in many fields including employment, health, sports, devotional places, public places etc and at times many faces harassment also. Transgenders have no access to bathrooms and public spaces, similar difficulties are being faced by them in prisons, hospitals and educational institutions. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights ) Act 2019 was passed and several provisions were made in order to protect the rights of the transgender people. Moreover, The Supreme Court has directed the Centre and State government to grant legal recognition of gender identity whether it be Male, female or third gender. An empirical study was carried out among the 520 respondents, the results shows that both the male and female respondents are aware about the transgender persons protection act 2019, the problems faced by the transgenders are homelessness, lack to access of bathroom, and unemployment and in most of devotional places and in educational institutions they still face discrimination and it was found there is significant association between the transgender being discriminated at workplace and gender of the respondents. It shows that that there is no gender based discrimination at workplace. It is suggested that more public awareness and legal measures should be initiated further by the government in order to improve the situation and standards of transgender people.

Keywords: Discrimination, Homelessness, Harassment, Equality and Constitutional rights.