Transpersons to get full financial support for higher education
At present the welfare measures for transgenders in the State was taken care of by Transgender Welfare Board under the Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Department.
CHENNAI: With only a limited number of transgender individuals pursuing higher education in the State at present, Tamil Nadu government has decided to cover all educational expenses including tuition and hostel fees for transgender individuals who want to pursue higher studies.
At present the welfare measures for transgenders in the State was taken care of by Transgender Welfare Board under the Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Department.
A senior official from the Social Welfare Department, seeking anonymity, told DT Next that currently, the board is helping transgenders by taking various measures including issuing identity and ration cards, electoral identity, housing pattas, medical aids, launching free housing schemes and among others.
“However, there is no big scheme for the transgenders to help them to pursue higher education”, he said, adding “hence very few transgenders were go- ing till graduate level”.
Pointing out even those few transgen- ders, who want to study for higher edu- cation, doing only correspondence courses, he said “therefore, the govern- ment has decided that they (all the trans- genders) have the right to education at all the levels on par with others.”
Stating that proper guidelines would be issued by the state government through an official order with regard to the financial aid to the transgender for
higher studies, he said, that “the author- ities concerned will also ensure aware- ness would be created with regard to the scheme among the transgenders.”
Pointing out that there is no exact data about the transgender population in the State, the official claimed approxi- mately 32,000 transgenders might be there in Tamil Nadu and there have been several requests from various transgender welfare associations to take exact population data so that all the wel- fare measures reach them.
Claiming that the financial aid scheme for higher education to the transgenders is likely to be implemented in the coming academic year, he said “apart from creating awareness about the scheme among the beneficiaries but also they (transgen- ders) would get the knowledge about thembenefits of higher education”.
It may be noted that the Madras High Court had recently told the State government to conduct a comprehensive sur- vey to collect the data in connection with
the transgender population so that they could be given horizontal reservation in education and in employment. In addition, K Prithika Yashini is the first trans- gender woman who completed her degree and became a police officer in the country. She has been recruited by the State police department as sub-inspector inm2017. Similarly, only a total of 8,465 trans- genders were in the electoral till date.
