“The career, lifestyle, education and earnings each one of us within the trans community experiences, largely depends on our caste backgrounds and privileges that come with it. While upper caste trans persons fight for cultural rights, DBA trans persons fight for survival and employment. That’s how different the dynamics within the community are,” Smile Vidya, says in an interview with The News Minute.
One cannot run away from multiple levels of discrimination when one lives in a nation that feeds numerous systems of oppression, waiting to eat everyone below them alive. Intersectionality is not kept at home when going out to college or for a job. Fighting battles of caste and cisgender norms is tough in its own sense, but when one has to fight all of it together, living becomes hell on earth.
Being transgender in a monolithic society is no less than going to war. Every day is a struggle. One does not choose to be trans, but one surely does choose to be transphobic. Transphobia and queerphobia are deeply engraved in people’s minds. Systems are made to cater to the binary only, and these institutions fail when someone does not fit into their stereotypical gender roles.
Discrimination, sexual assault, harassment, and threats are a constant fears in transgender people’s lives. And where do they go to save themselves? To the police? For protection? These systems are not built for the protection of the marginalized, but rather for serving the cisgender “officials”.
According to a report by the National Institute of Epidemiology, the majority of offenders and violators against the trans community are police and law enforcement officers. This study was conducted with 60,000 transgender participants living across 17 states in India. Where does one go when the structure made to protect them is the one they need protection from?
Being Transgender in a Transphobic Country
In 2021, a 17-year-old trans girl was murdered by her brother because of her identity, in Tamil Nadu’s Salem district. She was a victim of abuse by her family members for expressing her gender identity. She fled her family and went to live with a few transgender people she befriended in Chengalpattu. Her family did not come to take her back. After being reported, the police sent her back to her family without closely investigating the matter. As in most cases, the family members are the legal guardians of children under 18, and the protocol is to send the children back to them, but this was not any usual case. The threat to the child was from the family members themselves, and that is what led to her death. Her brother was later arrested. When asked by the police, they said they’ve started awareness drives and programs in the district to bring about societal change.
This is not an isolated event. There are many such cases of hate crimes against queer and trans people. The Supreme Court of India in 2014 passed a judgement in its NALSA vs The Union of India case that recognized transgender people as the “third gender” and upheld their right to be treated equally and with the same fundamental rights. But still, there hasn’t been much action on anti-discriminatory practices. Crimes against transgender people are being reported very little in the country, not because they don’t happen but because of the unwelcoming nature of these institutions.
In 2022, a transgender student was denied a hostel facility at Punjab University. This was a clear violation of their rights under the NALSA judgement for acquiring quality education. The student pleaded in the high court and after months of fighting they were finally allotted a room. The university was instructed to build accommodations for trans youth. But why do people always need to fight for their basic rights? Anti-discriminatory protocols need to be implemented for a better living standard for LGBTQIA+ folk.
When one talks about giving equitable opportunities to people who have been discriminated against for decades, they ask the officials to grant them reservations in the education and employment sectors. These reservations are called horizontal reservations.
Horizontal and Vertical Reservations: The Difference
Reservations are a system for affirmative actions that provide representation to historically disadvantaged sections of society. Reservations allow people from marginalised populations to get reserved seats or quotas in education, employment, governmental schemes, scholarships, politics, etc. These seats are based on the provisions in the Indian Constitution and are set by the Union Government and the States of India.
There are two types of reservations: Horizontal and Vertical.
Vertical reservations, also called social reservations, provide representation to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes. As mentioned in Article 16 (A) of the Indian Constitution, all these legally identified groups are subject to it independently.
Horizontal reservations, also called special reservations, refer to the representation given to other beneficiary groups that go beyond vertical divisions. Women, veterans, queer and transgender persons, people with disabilities, etc. come under this category. It is mentioned in Article 15 (3) of the Indian Constitution. Horizontal reservations ensure that all people should be provided with equitable opportunities.
The horizontal quota is not applied symmetrically; instead, it is always applied categorically to each vertical group. The reservations are compartmentalised. For example, if a person with disability has a 10% horizontal quota, then 10% of the general, OBC, ST, and SC candidates chosen must be persons with disability. Similarly, if a woman has a 40% horizontal quota then 40% of the General, OBC, ST, and SC candidates chosen should be women.
Importance of Horizontal Reservations
The Historic NALSA Judgement said that reservations are to be provided to transgender persons but did not clarify under what category. The confusion has been used by the states to not extend a helping hand to the people in need. Most states treat transgender reservations as caste reservations and put them vertically, but the problem occurs when a person with an intersectional background applies for that reservation. For example, if a Dalit transgender person wants to apply for reservation they’ll need to choose if they want the SC quota or transgender quota, and choosing either of them would keep them at a disadvantage as they’re not being given equitable opportunities.
Dalit and transgender activist Grace Banu has been leading the movement for horizontal reservations. She became the first transgender person to get admission in an engineering college in Tamil Nadu. Other than Karnataka, only Tamil Nadu provides reasonable reservations. Tamil Nadu puts transgender people under the “Most Backward Class” category.
Grace Banu pleaded in the Supreme Court for clarification on their 2014 judgement, but the court denied it, saying they weren’t inclined to entertain a miscellaneous application in disposed-off proceedings.
Later, she and 15 other protestors were detained and allegedly manhandled by the police officials for peacefully protesting. The protests were against the police recruitment list that was released and did not have any trans person’s name even after scoring well in exams. Grace Banu said it is because they do not have any separate reservations.
On 10th April, 2024, the Police Commissioner of Pune issued an order under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and banned trans people from begging at traffic signals, private residences, public spaces, hospitals, and others. A similar ban was imposed in Nagpur a year ago. These bans only further the stigma and make people use legal backing to discriminate on the basis of gender.
After 10 years of the NALSA vs the Union of India judgement, nothing much has changed. Surely there has been a little improvement but that is too minute when we look at the conditions in which people are living right now. Begging on the streets, in red light areas, sex work, and other low-paying jobs are the only available jobs for transpeople to earn some money from and buy two meals in a day. There is nothing wrong in working as a sex worker, but it is surely wrong when one is forced into this profession because no one else in this society wants to give them a job. This is why reservations are so important.
Karnataka is the only state in India that provides horizontal reservations to transpeople in India. The Madras High Court on 3rd June 2024 passed an order that directed the Government of Tamil Nadu to give horizontal reservations to all trans persons mandatorily. Other states should learn from this and make necessary accommodations.
Conclusion
Every human being has the right to live a dignified life. They have the right to education, the right to shelter, and the right to self-identify their gender. But all these basic human rights are continuously being violated by the officials sitting in their concrete palaces. These walls of discrimination need to be pulled down for a society to be fair.
Horizontal reservations and other monetary and social benefits for transgender people are the need of the hour. Inclusivity is not only when you post rainbow pictures or support LGBTQIA+ people in June during the Pride month. Inclusivity is really when you work towards bringing in anti-discriminatory laws, creating equal opportunities in jobs and education, and letting queer people access their rights.
Written by – Harshvardhan Bhaskar
Edited by – Tanishka Verma
