Given the current Indian scenario, it is very rare for a news item to actually make me smile. What with the rapes, the communal political comments and crimes on the rise, I hardly expect a piece on the government acting upon a law made for transgenders. Thankfully, Mumbai managed to make me smile today.
The city got its first, and perhaps the only one in the entire country, transgender passport. Vikhroli resident Satyashree Sharmila, a law graduate applied for a passport last year in October. The 33-year-old was surprised to not find a transgender option along with the male and female one. The Supreme Court had, a few months earlier, in April sanctioned the third gender and had asked the government to ensure that transgenders to get job quotas and have their gender recognised on IDs like the voter card, passport and driving license.
Satyashree refused to tick either the male or female box and instead found a form online with a third option in the column for sex. The result: Satyashree received her passport last month making her the proud owner of Maharashtra’s first transgender passport. I am glad that we finally have a law that gives transgenders their much-needed rights.
While pursuing my Journalism degree, there was one student in my class who was making a documentary on transgenders and what drove them to a profession like begging in the first place. Amidst a whole lot of skepticism – because we all believed that the reason was that they were plain lazy, right? – her documentary stood out as an honest attempt to understand the plight of a bunch of people who in reality did not exist on paper. Honestly, what options did they really have? We certainly didn’t leave them with too many choices anyway.
And that is why the government’s initiative to actualise the law and give them a chance at a better quality of life is truly applause-worthy.
Image courtesy: BCCL
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