Transgender rights in Tamil Nadu

Transgender people in India are called Thirunar, Thirunangai (for transfeminine people) and Thirunambi (for transmasculine people). The term Aravaani in Tamil was widely popularised before 1990's which is a substitute term for Hijra in India and visible male to female transgender people i.e. thirunangai are often discriminated against in jobs forcing them to resort to begging and prostitution.

Tamil Nadu has an estimated population of more than 30,000 transgender people. It has made great strides in trying to integrate transgender people into society. This includes welfare schemes initiated by the Government and acceptance of transgender people into the mainstream media and film industry.

The Tamil Nadu state in India was the first state to introduce a transgender (hijra/ aravani) welfare policy. According to the transgender welfare policy transgender people can access free Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) in the Government Hospital (only for transfeminine people); free housing program; various citizenship documents; admission in government colleges with full scholarship for higher studies; alternative sources of livelihood through formation of self-help groups (for savings) and initiating income-generation programmes (IGP). Tamil Nadu was also the first state to form a Transgender Welfare Board with representatives from the transgender community.

In a pioneering effort to solve the problems faced by transgender people, the government of Tamil Nadu (a state in South India) established a transgender welfare board in April 2008. Social welfare minister will serve as the president of the board. This effort is touted to be the first in India and even in the world. The government has also started issuing separate food ration cards for transgender people. Even though the transgender welfare board solely started focusing only on the development of Trans women in recent days the rights of Trans men and gender variants are discussed.

In additional effort to improve the education of transgender people, Tamil Nadu government also issued an order on May 2008 to create a third gender for admissions to government colleges.

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Wikipedia