Election Commission, UIDAI recognize third gender ...

This is for Frances Mary Fischer, the transgender woman I met in New York.

An edited version appeared in The Indian Express on October 12, 2010.

Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, October 11, 2010

It was a fight for a column, a space where the numerous transgender could affirm their identity and not be compartmentalized into either male or female.
With Bihar becoming the first state to implement the Election Commission's mandate to have a separate column “Other” in the voter enrolment and registration, Dr. SE Huda, a Bareilly-based doctor who had approached the apex body that conducts elections in 2009 asking them to recognize the third gender, feels vindicated.
It is not just the Election Commission that took the lead so “others could follow suit” as per the Chief Election Commissioner SY Quershi, now the UIDAI, a Planning Commission initiative to accord identity to all Indian residents, has also extended the gender identity and inclusion to “Transgender” on their enrolment forms and their database.
The UIDAI enrolment form will now have “M”, “F” and “T” so the one million eunuchs can register as themselves.“It was a legitimate demand and we said let others follow out example. It is a good thing that the UIDAI is doing it. In the voter enrolment, the officials refused to register them as females because of their male voice so we decided to do this,” Chief Election Commissioner SY Quershi said.
“There was some representation to Navin Chawla and we immediately decided to do it. It is an all India instruction but starts with Bihar in the upcoming elections.”In February 2010 the election commission of India allowed intersex and transsexuals the right to register as voters with “Other”.
This was what Bareilly-based Dr. SE Huda, secretary of Syed Shah Farzand Ali Educational & Social Foundation of India, which has offices in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi where they work with women, children and eunuchs, fought for. At a conference for third gender equality in Bareilly in April 2009, his organization had decided they would take this up with the Election Commission, with the Census, and with the UIDAI, so the right identity is accorded and statistical data on the number of transgender in the country becomes available. Dr. Huda was also called to Delhi by former chief election commissioner Navin Chawla to discuss his work with the community and how to reach out this segment of voters with a low voting rate.
In August, the UIDAI wrote back to Barielly-based doctor Huda that the authority had already provided a third option – transgender – on their enrolment form and in the database. The 30-year-old doctor had asked the Planning Commission to include the “third sex” to accord them their rightful identity so they could access various government welfare schemes like the Tamil Nadu government's scheme of a welfare board and free sex reassignment surgeries at the government hospitals for the transgenders and the Karnataka's government pension scheme for the members of the community. For the UIDAI Huda's letter was an endorsement of sorts, and a reassurance that they were in the right direction with the marginalized community, UIDAI Deputy Director General K. Ganga said.
Ganga had responded to Dr. Huda's RTI application and she told Indian Express that the Demographic Data Standard and Verification Procedure Committee had already decided to capture the information whether a person was transgender though it wasn't their mandate to collect statistical data on eunuchs way back in December 2009, something that Dr. Huda wanted. "We had received this letter and I was the one who had responded," Ganga said. "We wrote to the President office who Huda had also written to telling them we could capture the gender but that would not be for statistical purpose. For us, it was an endorsement of our plans." In future, the UIDAI may also partner with groups and organizations that work with the transgender community.
Around five years ago, a transgender person had asked for an appointment at a hospital in Barielly but at 10 in the morning she didn't turn up at the hospital. She came later in the evening and Dr. Huda, a 30-year-old doctor who wrote to the UIDAI earlier this year to ask them to include the third sex on their enrollment form, asked her why she didn't come earlier.
She was in pain as she was suffering with cervical spondylitis and pain was radiating towards her heart and her limbs had become numb. But even acute pain couldn't bring her to go to the hospital earlier.
She asked if he wanted her to go through yet another round of humiliation in a crowded general OPD ward. Dr. Huda recalled he didn't know what to say.
“She asked me if I had the courage to diagnose her in front of everyone,” Dr. Huda said. “That led me to work towards the inclusion of the transgender in the mainstream society. I had followed it up. It is good that they did it."