In all government services, Karnataka has become the first state in the country to grant a 1% reservation for the ‘transgender’ community. The government informed the High Court that a notification had already been published following the amendment of the Karnataka Civil Service (General Recruitment) Rule, 1977.
The Karnataka government will follow the definition of ‘transgender person’ as described in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, of the Union government. As per the act, a ‘transgender person’ is one whose gender does not match with the gender assigned to them at birth, and includes transman or transwoman, a person with intersex variations, genderqueer, and those who have socio-cultural identities such as kinnar, hijra, aravani and jogta.
Members of the transgender community welcomed the police notification. Transgender folk dancer Matha B Manjamma Jogati, who was honored with a Padma Shri award for her contribution to arts by President Ram Nath Kovind, said, “This is a piece of great news and the transgender community should be proud and happy about it. Finally, transgenders in the state can become police officers. Earlier, we were scared of the police as transgenders. Now, our people are set to become police officials.”
Prominent transgender activist Akkai Padmashali said, “The decision taken by the Karnataka Police department is a piece of welcome news. It is also the result of a long fight for equal rights by the sexual minorities. The Karnataka police academy, senior police officials and the media played a huge role in this and today the police department is ready to recruit transgenders in the department.”
Karnataka has decided to reserve one percent of teaching and non-teaching posts in schools for transgender people and in February published the draft recruitment rules. With the finalization of these Karnataka Education Department Services Rules, the policy will be in place.
In 2014, the Supreme Court pronounced a landmark judgement which recognised transgender people as the “third gender” and affirmed their fundamental rights. Following this judgement, the Karnataka government became one of the first states to bring out a transgender policy with the Karnataka State Policy on Transgenders 2017.
(SOURCE INDIAN EXPERSS)
