Transgender Special Card

Why in NEWS ?

• Government deliberating special card for transgenders to link them to welfare schemes.

About

• According to member of the recently-constituted National Council for Transgender Persons(NCTP), the government is deliberating on making a special identity card for transgender community members that will help in liking them with various social welfare schemes.
• The Centre had in August constituted the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP) to formulate policies, programmes, draft legislation and projects regarding members of the community for achieving equality and full participation by them.
• The first meeting of the NCTP was held through video conference on 15 th October, chaired by Social Justice Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot.
• Discussions were also held on introducing a transgender identity card that will link with them the social welfare schemes for the community. There will be a transgender identity card which will be linked to social welfare schemes. The plan has not been finalised yet but deliberations were held on the identity card.
• Making such a card is one of the demands of the community and it will help in their upliftment.
• India is the first country which has taken such a step to form a department and a council for the community. The government is taking the transgender community forward and trying its best to remove the social stigma associated with the community members.

National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP)

• The council was established in August by the Centre in exercise of the powers conferred by the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.
• It has been constituted by The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to formulate policies, programmes, legislation and projects regarding members of the community for achieving equality and full participation by them.
• Functions of the council include advising the Centre on the formulation of policies, programmes, legislation and projects with respect to transgender persons, monitoring and evaluating the impact of policies and programmes designed for achieving equality and full participation of transgender persons.
• The other functions of the council are to review and coordinate the activities of all the departments of government and other governmental and non-governmental organisations dealing with matters relating to transgender persons, to redress the grievances of transgender persons, and to perform such other functions as may be prescribed by the Centre.
• The council have representatives from community members, five states and 10 central departments.
• Its chairperson will be the Union Minister of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment while the vice-chairperson will be the junior minister in the ministry, according to the gazette notification.
• The other members will be from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry Home Affairs, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Minority Affairs ministry and Rural Development ministry among others, it said.
• The representatives of the state governments and union territories by rotation, one each from the north, south, east, west and northeast regions have also been announced.
• Five representatives of the transgender community, one each from the north, south, east, west and northeast regions have also been announced- Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, Gopi Shankar Madurai, Meera Parida, Zainab Javid Patel and Kak Chingtabam Shyamcand Sharma.

Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019

• The Bill defines a transgender person as one whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth. It includes trans-men and trans-women, persons with intersex variations, gender-queers, and persons with socio-cultural identities, such as kinnar and hijra.
• Intersex variations is defined to mean a person who at birth shows variation in his or her primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomes, or hormones from the normative standard of male or female body.

Prohibition against discrimination

• Any person who is found to be compelling a transgender person into bonded labour denying right of public passage to a transgender person, evicting a transgender from his/her place of residence, causing physical, sexual, verbal, economic and emotional abuse, can be penalised with imprisonment of not less than six months, that can extend up to two years.
• It prohibits discrimination against a transgender person on grounds including denial, discontinuation or unfair treatment in educational establishments, services, employment, healthcare.
• The Bill states that a transgender person shall have the right to self-perceived gender identity which can be obtained at the District Magistrate's office and a revised certificate is to be obtained if sex is changed.
• The bill has a provision that provides transgender the right of residence with parents and immediate family members.
• The Bill mentions that the Government will formulate transgender sensitive, non- stigmatising and non-discriminatory welfare schemes and programmes.
• The government shall provide education, sports and recreational facilities for transgender people.
• Provisions for separate HIV surveillance centres and sex reassignment surgeries should also be provided by the government.