As A Reflection Of Changing Times All Gender Toilets Is A Must Everywhere

The transgender community has many problems that they have to face. Sometimes, being a member of the community alone is a mortal sin. These people continue to face discrimination, violence and exclusion in society.

The need of the hour is for more discussions on this topic. We need to endeavour to break the cycle of our limited understanding of their problems and the atrocities they face in a skewed society.

In spite of the innumerable inclusion programmes and talks on diversity, most public places, like airports, restaurants, malls and railway stations, only have marked male or female toilets. It is taken for granted that transgenders in India may not have the financial ability to take flights or the shame of using a man’s toilet. Their modesty is not even a topic of discussion. Rape maybe is inevitable, but the shameful attitude makes it unacceptable.

Therefore, during this week of recognition and celebration, we must emphasise our attitude towards them. We need to be more empathetic than ever, to their troubled history and the atrocities they have faced in India and across the world.

This recognition is laudable, but a very tiny step towards transgender empowerment.

Why All Gender Toilets Is A Must

There are many issues that need immediate attention. Transgenders are frightened to go into hospitals for checkups in the fear of being ostracised by other patients. The concerns for trans people range from being denied to rent a home, to healthcare that we as cisgender people take for granted.  Also, separate toilets in public spaces need to be assigned to them.

The transgender awareness is a one-week celebration leading up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th. Which is memorisation for the victims of transphobic violence.

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Recently two men attacked a Transgender woman in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi district. They have been accused of abusing and chopping off transgender hair. This incident brings to light the deep hatred they harbour for them.

Transphobia incidentally started in India, with the British rulers. According to the British, the Transgenders/Hijras were an ungovernable population that posed a danger to colonial rule.

In 1871, the colonial government passed a law that criminalised Hijras, with the explicit aim of causing Hijras extermination.

Transphobic violence doesn’t get reported much. But the non-inclusion is totally visible. Every day we can find transgenders in traffic signals, begging for money. Most are denied any place in society. So to find peace, they join their community.

They do not risk leaving the community, with the deep fear of being misunderstood, unaccepted and also being mistreated by family members including their parents. They continue to be part of the community they join as trans people, however harsh or tough it is.

Mriganka Gope, a researcher based in  Kolkata, who works closely with transgenders and sex workers, said, "Most transgenders do not wish to work since society does not accept them, even if they leave their group of transgenders and find employment, if they lose their job due to their gender, their group will not accept them back."

The Indian government has only recently included them in job reservations. In Karnataka, they are entitled to 1% inclusion in government jobs since February 2022.

In all this recognition and celebration, most have forgotten the transmen. They are a minority in the community, as a trans woman is more recognised than a transgender man.

Transgender men will remain ashamed forever. They get their periods like women. Most of them are frightened to discuss it or seek help. The government has made "Sulab Sauchalay" across all the cities in India. Over 200 million people use these toilets and they have established more than ten thousand toilets across all the major cities.

These public toilets, found in every nook and corner of the country, aren’t inclusive. They have toilets assigned only to men and women.

This causes them distress and fear. Also, this is a huge difficulty that the trans man faces. They cannot go to a women’s toilet to change their sanitary napkins.

They muster the courage to change their pads in the men’s urinal, which doesn’t have walls separating one from the other to ensure privacy during their menstrual cycles.

It leaves one frightened to imagine what they go through in public urinals during their menstrual cycles.

Arayan Pasha, India’s first transgender bodybuilder, said, "This is as unfortunate as it is a reality in our lives. Finding respect and acceptance from society is not easy. We are treated differently and not given the respect we deserve in every step of our life".

Mohua Chinappa is an author and a podcaster of a show called The Mohua Show. The views expressed are the author's own.