India is a country that has been in the news quite a lot this past year, and not always for the best reasons. Recently, though, India’s Supreme Court has made tremendous progress and recognized transgender individuals as part of a third gender.
How is this news, you may ask? Simply said, India, by passing this ruling, has made tremendous progress in gender equality, even further so than its some developed countries. It is true that surveys in North America, for example, do give the option to check the box “other” if the individual does not identify himself as male or female, but that is not what gender equality is. In North America, transgender individuals still have to face a lot of social and institutional barriers. Unfortunately, transgender individuals have to face perpetual discrimination from health practitioners, insurance barriers that will not cover their health issues, no government aid and no community therapy or support to help them through their harrasment. Words might not be strong enough to really portray the unequal access transgender individuals have to live with, just because they are outside of the ‘normative’ category of society, but the movie Dallas Buyers Club will be.
If you haven’t seen it, it follows the story of a man infected by HIV who finds drugs adequate to his care in Mexico after American doctors refused him, and smuggles them back into the border to help others who are also HIV positive. This film gained a lot of Oscar buzz because actor/singer Jared Leto portrayed a transgender individual infected with HIV who was also in need of better drug treatment, but wasn’t really taken care of well by the doctors. In fact, most of the buyers of the smuggled drugs are among society’s marginalized minorities.
India’s Supreme Court is working to make transgender people feel more included in society by treating them as members of a separate gender whom the government will help. The ruling ordered India’s government to provide transgender people with quotas in jobs and education in line with other minorities, as well as key amenities.
Justice RS Radhakrishnan stated: “recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue.” Now, thanks to the ruling, the estimated two million transgender people living in India will be provided with jobs, education, support and healthcare as well as recognition from their own state. This acceptance of a marginalized community is a very big step and an example for other countries.
Sources/Photos Retrieved From: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27031180 and http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/74257000/jpg/_74257800_74257799.jpg.