Time to scrap Section 377, provide equal rights

The Supreme Court had, in a PIL filed by National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) praying the court to give separate identity to transgenders by recognising them as third category of gender, created the “third gender” status for hijras or transgenders in April, 2014. The said judgment conferred OBC status for the third gender and also directed the Centre to ensure special facilities for the transgenders, treating them as socially and economically backward. They had to be allowed admission in educational institutions and provided employment as third gender. This case also says that if a person surgically changes his/her sex, then he or she is entitled to the changed sex and cannot be discriminated.

Three years have passed, but like many other directions, recognition of third sex or of persons changing their sex are only on paper. The State authorities are reluctant to take cognisance of the realities of change. In a recent case, a transgender software engineer, who was born as a woman underwent sex reassignment surgery and other therapies and became a man. Therefore, he had to change his identity from that of a female to male in all his certificates. The school and university authorities  refused to make the necessary mutation of records in his certificates. Therefore, he had to move the Madras High Court for necessary directions to make changes in his records. Justice Pushpa Satyanarayan has rightly passed a judgment directing the authorities to make necessary changes in his records, to ensure that he is described as a male within eight weeks of the receipt of the order. The Court has frowned upon the authorities for their insensitivity and said, “In fact, the authorities, in the nature of the present case, should readily extend their helping hand, rather than denying the same, looking down upon them.” 

June was the month of the Rainbow, with gay parades all over the  world and the order in favour of a transgender person who has changed his sex is a welcome one. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) people in India are pitted against odds. It is time for the State to bring about legislation to ensure that equal protection is afforded to them. United States of America, Australia, Great Britain and many other countries have now brought about legislation to make corrections in the births and deaths registers, to change the sex and also to register as third gender, etc. 

The Modi government has managed to weed out as many as 1,159 obsolete laws in less than two years. It is high time that it also scraps Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalises any person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, with punishment that may be from ten years to life. The State has to stop intruding into the private lives of its citizens. Correcting the error committed by the Supreme Court and upholding the spirit of the discussions by the Delhi High Court, while striking down this section as unconstitutional in NAZ Foundation Case, is the need of the hour.