Visibility and Social Acceptability of Kerala’sTransgender Population: A Comparative Studyof the Periods before and after the TransgenderPolicy

Abstract

The State of Kerala in India is considered to be a progressive one, especiallyin its approach towards the transgender community in recent years.Following the Supreme Court verdict of 2014 (NALSA Judgement),recognising transgender people as the third gender and granting themthe right to self-identification, Kerala was the first to formulate aTransgender policy in 2015. The aim of the policy as recommended bythe apex court is to "grant legal recognition of their gender identity" andto end discrimination and stigmatisation. Despite this progressivemeasure, the community is still socially discriminated against in termsof their gender identity, which becomes a significant hurdle in theeffective implementation of the policy. The trans population in Kerala,unlike in the other states, remained invisible for a long time. Most ofthem either hesitated to come out of their closets or migrated to otherstates where they could find people of their community. Expressing theirgender identity was not an easy task for them in Kerala because of tworeasons: the invisibility of the transgender community and theadamantine chains of the society, which never let its conformity bequestioned. The study examines the changing scenario in the visibilityof transgender people as a community in Kerala after the formulation ofthe Transgender Policy.