A transgender may have to be more wary of the colleague in the next cubicle than a stranger on the street.
A survey covering 440 transgender people and kothis in six districts, including Chennai, found that sexual abuse and harassment were higher among those working in organised sectors like government or government-undertaken agencies, registered corporate institutions and voluntary agencies.
The study , undertaken by Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative of Voluntary Health Services (TAI-VHS) and Centre for Sexuality and Health Research and Policy , has pulled the rug from beneath the feet of Tamil Nadu which often prides itself on the progress made in rights related to sexual and gender minorities. Vijay Raman of TAI, who was part of the research team, said despite opportunities opening up for members of the community , they seemed more like token gestures. “How else would you explain the dropout rate of transgender people from the organised sector? It's as high as 90%,“ he said. “The few in the glass cubicles are celebrated, but what happens inside is tinted over,“ he said.
The research team beamed a torchlight: 18% of the participants reported being sexually harassed, 17% verbally abused and 13% were forced to have sex. They said the more common perpetrators were co-workers compared to supervisors.
Rabina*, a transgender who works as a secretary in a private company in Nammakkal, told the research team: “While I walk my hips would sway . If I bend down, people would pinch my bottom. I'm scared to report as I don't want my boss to think I'm a liability,“ she said. Seema, her peer in Pudukottai who worked in a factory , lodged a complaint against sexual slurs. “The supervisor advised me to change my body language. He instructed me to talk like a man,“ she said. Seema responded by dropping out of work and switching to doing menial jobs.
Around 24% of the transgender people and kothis surveyed reported being employed as staff in private companies.
At present, most transgender people are sex workers or daily wagers, while a few are employed in the organised sector. This despite the study finding that at least 16% had completed a college degree and 17% higher secondary education. Kothis are relatively better educated with a high proportion employed in the organised sector when compared to transgender people. But they aren't spared too. “They have an image that all kothis and people from the transgender community will try seducing male co-workers.So they would give me work where I have to be alone,“ said Mani, who worked for a hotel in Namakkal.
Activists who have been fighting for sexual minority rights for long say although Tamil Nadu is slowly opening up to including people from the transgender community, poor awareness on LGBT issues in corporate and government spaces has isolated the community further. “I had a case where a transgender who returned to work after undergoing a sex change operation wasn't taken back,“ said Jaya of Sahodaran, an organization that works for the LGBT cause.