It’s very sad that in a progressive country like India especially in urban cities the transgenders (Eunuchs) are overlooked and in fact shooed away by public.

While its common knowledge that transgenders are born to normal human beings, these very normal human beings behave in such a selfish manner and these people are treated worse than animals. Its ironical that there are hundreds of NGO’s for animals in particular for dogs whereas there are a handful of NGO’s for transgenders out of which couple of them Astitiva and DAI have been floated by a famous literate and brilliant transgender who can put any average normal person to shame by her achievements. Her name is Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi (In Mumbai India) who is a MA in literature (from Mitihibai College) and a bharatnatyam dancer and she represents the transgender community at the UN (mind blowing). I was fortunate enough to have met her.

It’s a fact that transgenders are born to normal parents like all of us. What happens in real life is extremely painful to digest. The transgender community has strong networking with maternity hospitals and once a transgender is born they are whisked away by community and the parents willingly give them away as a) they don’t have a choice b) they are ashamed to tell the world that their kid is a transgender. They normally lie to the world that the child was born dead (Still born) c) Even if the parents are ready to take up the responsibility, our society would not allow them to live a normal life. There have been instances where the parents have taken a call to bring up their transgender kid. However, once the kid is seven to eight years old, the normal people realize the truth and then the kid is harassed by everyone. The parents are then forced to handover the kid to the transgender community.

The transgenders are involved in the following activities:

a) They beg at traffic signals

b) They dance at weddings

c) Prostitution

The society does not permit then to do any normal work on a day to day basis.

I appeal to the Government of India and also to the UN to give equal rights to transgenders as the third sex and thereby to do justice to the Transgender community and not be biased to normal persons only.

In India anal intercourse is considered to be abnormal sex and is punishable up to the extent of 10 years. How ridiculous can a law get? This section (Section 377 of the Indian penal code) was introduced by the British more than 140 years ago. The section says “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with ¹[imprisonment for life], or with imprisonment of either description for term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Most of the time, Gays, Lesbians and transgenders end up being harassed by the authorities, (mentally or physically) and at times even arrested under irrelevant laws.

The English have done with the law more than half a century ago. However, the legacy continues in India. The police here take advantage of the law and harass the transgenders. For the transgenders abnormal sex is normal sex. How can the section 377 be imposed on them I fail to fathom…

Moreover, since gay sex is banned in India, the gays, lesbians and transgenders fear going for HIV treatment as they would arrested by the police for gay activities. On this ground alone the gay activities should be legalized in India or for that matter anywhere in the world.

Litigation is presently going on in the High court in Mumbai India. I hope sanity would prevail and transgender/Gays are at least saved by this draconian law.