Sruthi Kc

Talk with society Systematic strategies to reduce the violence against transgender community need to occur at multiple levels, including making perpetrators accountable, facilitating legal and policy reform that removes criminality and general advocacy to sensitize the ill informed about Trans issues and concerns. To strengthen the rights of the transgender community and bring them front, society has to change their mentality towards transgender community first. The rights of transgender people are being ignored nowadays. They are being as an unwanted part of the society. They do not have an active citizenship, no effective life facilities, no education, being stigmatized, discrimination, violence, workplace related exploitation, they do not have right to health etc has to be changed as soon as possible and society has to sweep it off from the society. For transgender, community and their right to health can only be assured if services are provided in a non-stigmatizing, non-discriminatory, and informed environment. This need to educate health care sector about gender identity and expression, and zero tolerance for conduct that excludes trans people. There are massive levels of derogatory thoughts the society having towards transgender health. Basic of gender identity or HIV status are some of the manifestations of prejudice. The right to non-discrimination that is guaranteed to all human beings under international law must be enforced against actions that violate this principle in the health care system. Dr: Suresh (General Medicine) says, “I had worked in Mumbai hospital for two years, there I could see many transgender people used to come to hospital for sex change. Nevertheless, most of the people used to ignore them and shout them if they sit next to any man or girl. We should realize that our body is same but because of some hormonal change happens someone’s body makes an individual feels that I am a girl not a boy. According to me, they are not a sin, they are also human beings and they too have the right to be healthier and right to take treatments from hospitals. The Society no needs to consider them because of sin”. Their families often reject Transgender people who express their gender identity from an early age. If not cast out from their homes, they are shunned within households resulting in lack of opportunities for education and with no attempts to ensure attention to their mental and physical health needs. Those who express their gender identities later in life often face rejection by mainstream society and social service institutions, as they go about undoing gender socialization. Hostile environments that fail to understand trans people’s needs threaten their safety and are ill equipped offer sensitive health and social services. A family of a transgender says, “Presently, we call her hudugi (girl) she was born as a boy and our entire family was so happy once I delivered a boy. We used to call her Appu. When she was kid, she used to play with other children around our premises. She used to mingle with boys and girls while going to school. When she was ten years old she started expressing girl’s behavior like wearing Salvar and Kammis, Sari, and used to makeover like a girl. One day she went to school in the morning, she came back in the evening, and that time she wore a Skirt and blouse. We got angry and I beat her. She cried loudly and said sorry. Then she stopped wearing girl’s dress and doing make up like a girl. After two months, again she started doing the same thing what she had done before. Finally, our neighbors started making of her fun and they ignored our family. One day she said, I want to be like a girl, I want to play with them, I want to dance and do not want to play cricket as my father said. We were completely avoiding her and her rights to choose her gender. Finally we shunned her from the family we said if you want to live like a boy, you can be with us otherwise you should get out of the family. Then she stopped going to school. She was good at studies and extracurricular activities too. Because of our mentality towards her gender, she went out of the family and she went to Mumbai. After long time she came back like a woman. Time has gone by now we are supporting her and we respect her gender. We have to tell one thing to the society, being transgender is not a sin and do not exclude them from your family. They are also human beings let them live how they want because it’s India”. Such discriminatory and exclusionary environments fuel social vulnerability over a lifetime; transgender people have few opportunities to pursue education and greater odds of being unemployed, thereby experiencing inordinately high levels of homelessness and poverty. Trans students experience resentment, prejudice, and threatening environments in schools, which leads to significant dropout rates, with few trans people advancing to higher education. Workplace related talk on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender(LGBT) individual reveals that trans workers are the most marginalized and are excluded from gainful employment, with discrimination occurring at all phases of the employment process including recruitment, training opportunities, employee benefits, and access to job advancement. This environment inculcates pessimistic and internalized transphobia in trans people, discouraging them from applying for jobs. These extreme limitations in employments can push trans people towards jobs that have limited potential for growth and development such as beauticians, entertainers or sex workers. Unemployment and low paying or high risk and unstable jobs feed in to the cycle of poverty and homelessness. When homeless trans people seek shelter, they are housed as per their sex at birth and not their experienced gender and are subject to abuse and humiliation by staff and residents. In these environments many trans people choose not to take shelter. The appointment of 23 transgenders gave Kochi Metro Limited (KMRL) worldwide publicity. Even as various international agencies and media hailed it as path breaking initiative, the publicity has ironically confounded the miseries of the sexual minority. While some of the transgenders who are living in the state by hiding their real sexual identity, were forced to leave their homes, facing difficulty in finding alternate accommodation in the city. Many of those who are sticking on with the job are also finding it hard to continue the service due to lack of accommodation. Amruta, who was appointed in the housekeeping department of KMRL at Aluva station, had taken long leave three days after she joined the service, as she has not been able to find a place to sleep near Aluva. She now stays in a lodge at Ernakulam South, which is 19 Kms from Aluva, by paying Rs 400 a day. Amruta says, “I can’t afford this, because per day 400 is really difficult for me. My salary is 9400 per month, and I am unable to take any part time job to supplement my income as my shift keeps changing every week. Because of the society’s attitude towards my community, and me we are suffering a lot. This mentality has to be changed and respect us too”. The transgenders were thrilled when they got the appointment to take up a job. But once they joined there, passengers and society started looking us as weird objects a transgender employee says”. Most of the people who are still working under KMRL also facing problems. Some of them are staying in lodges and they are not at all safe there. CR Reshmi, a spokesperson of the KMRL said, we can’t provide them accommodations, because they were appointed under a contract given to Kudumbasree, an all women anti poverty mission. We have 628 members of Kudumbasree and they are working in various branches of the KMRL. If we give any special consideration for transgender workers, it will lead to a discrimination statement. It will not possible for us to provide transgender people accommodations”. The survey found that the transgenders were discriminated in every aspect of life. As high as 70 percent have at least one experience of being denied a job due to their gender identity, 52 percent transgenders face harassment from the police, 89 percent reported of being mistreated at their workplaces and 28 percent have been sexually harassed or raped.(firstspot.com). The attitude of the society has to change first. Then automatically improves the life of the LGBT community. If the society is not changing their stigmatized mentality towards transgender, nothing will be possible to make a change. There are many transgenders have attained good education qualification. Therefore, the government should take a stand to provide them good jobs and life facilities. Every school should give an awareness class about LGBT and their rights. Instead of blaming them and throwing out them of the society, we have to accept them as human beings like us. Through that, everyone can do good things and good changes for the lives of LGBT community. Ignoring a community is not a solution to eradicate stigma, make them too aware of their rights in the society.