The High Court of Karnataka has ordered issue of notice to the State Government on a PIL petition seeking direction to all the institutions of higher education in the State to provide separate hostel facilities for transgender students.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar passed the order on the petition filed by 24-year-old Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, who is completing her MBBS course in a private medical college at Manipal in Udupi district.
Petitioner, who identifies her gender as female and has undergone gender-affirming medical and surgical transition and treatment, has claimed that many transgender students drop out of higher educational institutions because of “harassment faced in the hostels” as they are not accommodated in hostels based on their gender identity but based on their sex assigned at birth and hence are placed in opposite gender hostels.
It has been contended in the petition that she herself faced hardship to reside in the hostel when she joined the course in 2015 as she was assigned to a boys hostel, where she was allegedly subjected to ragging, abuse, and humiliation and due to this she had shifted to a private accommodation.
Pointing out that she had changed her gender and name during the course and also underwent gender reassignment surgery, she has explained in the petition the hardship that she had faced to get recognition for her status from the college authorities.
The petitioner has also sought direction to the Government to ensure that transgender students of higher educational institutions be accommodated in hostels according to their self-determined gender identity. It has been contended that the non-allotment of hostels to transgender students as per their self-identified gender is a violation of the provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.
All higher educational institutions should also be directed to frame guidelines for admission of transgender students, the petitioner has pleaded.
