New Delhi, Dec 9: The transgender community--fighting for its rights to lead a normal life--has been mighty miffed with the Narendra Modi government.
As the Centre is planning to reintroduce its original, Transgender Persons Bill, in the upcoming winter session of Parliament, members of the socially ostracised community, is all set to host a nationwide protest on December 17 against the bill.
According to the members of the transgender community, the bill is "trans-exclusionary and regressive" and hence they have decided to protest. As a part of the December 17 protest, members of the community are already preparing to lodge their voices against the bill through social media campaigns, letters to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the ministry of social justice. The community members, who were hopeful about positive changes in their lives including the end of criminalisation of same-sex marriage after a series of progressive recommendations were made by a Parliamentary committee report, are upset that the Union government is planning to reintroduce its original Transgender Persons Bill as it is. "Our ministry feels that the bill made by us is good and there is no need to change it," social justice minister Thaawarchand Gehlot was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. "The very definition of transgender in the bill as neither male nor female etc. is scientifically inaccurate and undignified. It is wrongly based on the concept of Ardhanaari in Hindu mythology. "Also, by mandating physical screening by district level panels, it does a great disservice to our right of self-identification as upheld in the landmark Supreme Court NALSA judgement (2014)," Gee Imaan Semmalar of Sampoorna, the country's largest network of trans and intersex persons, told The Indian Express. Karthik Bittu, an associate professor at Ashoka University, said the bill is not only silent on the right to marriage, adoption or alternate family structures, but also fails to give commensurate punishment in cases of sexual violence. "The bill mentions a punishment of only six months to two years for sexual violence against trans people whereas the usual punishment is up to seven years. We demand that the Bill in its present form be withdrawn and a national consultation with members of our community be held before reintroducing it," he said. The community members have launched a signature campaign against the proposed move to reintroduce the original bill on November 23. Till now, the campaign has got the support of 73 rights organisations from India and 43 from across the world. OneIndia News