A decade after NALSA judgment, trans lives continue to get lost to systemic violence

On January 15, Pinki (born Sakir Hussain), a transperson, became a victim of a violent crime and was found with their throat slit in Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. It was the second crime against a transgender person in the same week. Five days earlier, 22-year-old Minal (born Abhisekh Tomar) was allegedly stabbed to death by a friend and his accomplice.

In 2020, when domestic crimes were exceptionally high owing to the lockdown, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) recorded a mere 236 crimes against transgender persons (0.006% of all crime victims). In 2023, NCRB claimed there had been no suicides in the transgender community in 19 metropolitan cities.

On November 20—observed as the Transgender Day of Remembrance to honour the memories of transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of violence—Dalit-trans activist Grace Banu put out newspaper reports online and gathered FIRs of 29 trans people in Tamil Nadu who were murdered or had to resort to suicide in the last one year.

Experts and activists working on the ground tell SocialStory that the appalling underreporting of these crimes can be attributed to the lack of documentation and barely reflects the situation on the ground.

Even though the Supreme Court’s 2014 National Legal Services Authority of India (NALSA) judgment affirmed that transgender persons have the right to self-determine their gender identity, they still need to approach the District Magistrate to issue a Certificate of Identity as mandated in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.

“There is no uniformity in guidelines or crisis management, owing to which the recorded number of crimes against transpeople remains grossly underreported,” says TD Sivakumar, Co-founder of LGBTQIA+ organisation Nirangal.

Relationships, a primary trigger

In May, Kerala’s first transman bodybuilder Praveen Nath—who was also awarded the Mr Kerala title in 2021—died by suicide. He was just 17 when Siddharth Bharathi, a 28-year-old transman from Chennai, met him for the first time in 2017. Nath was working hard at the gym to become a bodybuilding champion. 

“His family had stopped supporting him after he came out to them. His mother went as far as to go to the hostel where he was staying and took all his jewellery with her. A transwoman friend helped him finish his first year of college. But he had to discontinue because he had no source of income,” says Bharathi. 

Nath was reportedly also troubled by rumours of separation from his wife whom he had married just three months before his suicide.

“Transpeople have the inherent need to be in an exclusive relationship—whether it is with a heterosexual or queer person—as it is a right that is systematically denied to them,” says Jeyarathinam, noting that this comes from a lifelong fight for survival is ingrained in the trans community. 

She also notes that many transwomen are in a relationship with married men and supports them and their families financially—either through doing sex work, begging or working in white-collar jobs—just so that they can feel like they too are a part of the social framework.

“When a relationship of this nature breaks, it takes a huge psychological toll on them,” notes Jeyarathinam. “And because this partnership is not socially sanctioned, there is nowhere they can go to demand justice. They lose their money, self-esteem and themselves to crimes.”

The lifelong insecurity about their place in the relationship also takes a toll on their mental health. Men also face social pressure and stigma against marrying transwomen largely due to their inability to have children, says Jeyarathinam.

Many transwomen want to live and be accepted as women in their relationships and families, and like anyone else, they crave to be desired and loved, says transwoman activist and member of Chennai-based LGBT group, Nirangal. “But for those who hail from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, this fundamental need itself costs them dearly,” she says.

In 2014, Jamila, a transwoman from Tiruvottiyur in Chennai, was stabbed to death by Arockiaraj, her live-in partner of six years in 2014. 

“Jamila used to run a biriyani stall and was financially independent. Her partner surrendered to the police and in his statement, said she was torturing him for sex. But with the help of the police, we found out that he was a married man with a daughter and had stolen Jamila’s jewels for his own needs,” says Shankari, who used to live with Jamila. “The last time I saw Arockiaraj, he was out on bail,” she adds.

Her case became a cry for justice for transwomen losing their lives to domestic crimes—something activists and social workers say is becoming increasingly common.

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Why transmen struggle harder 

Since they are assigned female at birth, transmen struggle to come out in a largely patriarchal society that makes their access to healthcare, employment and safe spaces almost impossible.

While transwomen have strong visibility and a sense of community, people assigned female at birth lack safe spaces. Their identity is also assumed to be feminine before the law. “So, every time a transman wants to come out of a violent or unsupportive family, they eventually go through the police (system). In most cases, their parents have the final word,” says Rumi Harish, a transman activist based in Bengaluru.

Bharathi, who is a nurse at a multispecialty clinic in Chennai, worked as a tea boy, a painter, and in other jobs that had little to do with his nursing diploma. When he did find jobs at big hospital chains in the city, he was subject to sexual harassment almost on an everyday basis. 

“None of the hospitals had gender-neutral toilets. I had to use the men’s toilet and was sexually harassed by a government staff member working at the hospital every day. My HR had made my gender identity public, and this man kept pushing me to ‘experiment’ with him to see if I was sure about being a transman,” says Bharathi, who left the hospital to join a small clinic for a lesser salary.

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Where the law stands

In 2014, the NALSA judgment recognised transgender persons have the right to equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court also noted that they are subjected to sexual assault, including molestation, rape, forced anal and oral sex, gang rape and stripping, and the state must ensure justice. 

In 2018, the Supreme Court read down Section 377 and recognised that transgender persons face abuse and sexual assault, often at the hands of law enforcement officials. 

Yet, discriminatory laws continue to prevent the community from getting justice, according to non-profit and research centre Prajnya’s gender violence report 2022.  

It notes that while the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights Act), 2019 recognises sexual abuse against transgender people as a punishable offence, it is only punishable by up to two years of imprisonment, a much lighter punishment than what is sanctioned for cis-gendered women.

Moreover, it does not define the acts that constitute sexual offences, making it more difficult for transgender persons to report such crimes. 

Chennai trans activist and artist Kalki Subramaniam, who has been newly appointed as the National Council for Trsngender Persons’ representative of southern states, says there are a few key changes she wants to help bring about. “The first is that punishment for violence against trans persons must be more severe. Gender sensitisation and trans rights must be included in the training of police personnel across the country,” she says.

“Trans rights are also human rights and transpeople must be treated in the same humanistic ways that we wish for other citizens: be it on roads, workplaces or even prisons.”