Madurai transgender seeks Collector to be guardian

Narrating her plight, transgender Bharathi Kannama, a resident of Madurai, said her parents had died long back and her siblings had deserted her after they came to know about her sexual identity. However, she had struggled all alone to continue her education and to meet her day-to-day expenses. 

Kannama claims she has a Honorary Doctorate degree. She is also the first transgender in India to become a member of Lok Adalat and had also received award for the best social worker from the Chief Justice of India. Kannama is an active social worker and runs a trust in her name to support transgenders. 

Kannama raised the strange request to the collector on Monday so that she can complete the formalities for applying for the LLB course of the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Chennai. She decided to pursue the course after knowing about a recent notification that the upper age limit for studying law had been withdrawn. However, a column in the application form asks for the signature of either the parent or the guardian. 

As the application form had directed the applicants not to leave any column in the form empty, she had doubts that her application form would be rejected for want of the signature of the parents or guardians. Hence she requested the Madurai Collector K.Veera Raghav Rao to be her guardian so that she can enrol for studies and realise her dream of becoming a lawyer.