Notify Rules For Transgender Rights, Sensitise Teachers To Needs Of Queer Children : Madras High Court To State

The Tamil nadu government on Friday informed the Madras High Court that the policy for protection of rights of transgender persons is at its final stage and that all steps will be taken to implement the policies at the earliest.

The bench of Justice Anand Venkatesh has thus granted a further 12 weeks' time to the State notify the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules.

"The learned Additional Advocate General submitted that the draft rules are now being scrutinized by the Law Department and based on the remarks and approval given by the Department, the same will be circulated to the concerned Minister and ultimately the files will be placed for approval before the Hon'ble Chief Minister...The status report gives more clarity as to what steps have been taken to implement the rules and it is seen that it is almost at the final stage," the Court recorded in its order.

The Court was hearing a plea moved by a lesbian couple seeking police protection from their family. The court had previously passed a series of directions in an attempt to remove the stigma associated with the community and to ensure welfare of the members of the community.

On Friday, the National Medical Commission informed the court that as directed earlier, Conversion Therapy had been enlisted as professional misconduct under the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations 2002. The court thus directed the Tamil Nadu Medical Council to implement the same. The court also directed NMC to issue communications to the Medical Colleges/ Medical Institutions/ Medical Universities/ Medical Education Boards to implement the revised guidelines for the competency-based PG Training Programme for MD in Psychiatry.

The NMC submitted a communication to this effect assuring the court that the revised guidelines and the module are going to be implemented for the Post Graduate Psychiatry curriculum from this academic year.

Emphasizing on the importance of sensitizing the teachers, the court remarked that when the children had no one to talk to, there were chances that these kids may even end up using drugs just to get out of their mental state.

"These kids do not have anyone to talk to. But they might be going through a lot internally. Just to get out of this mental frame, these kids sometimes get addicted to drugs. People will not look into why they went that way. They'll just tag them as drug addicts", the Court orally remarked.

Thus, the court directed the respondents to take up the issue seriously and start the process of sensitizing teachers in school so that they are better equipped to understand what is undergone by a child who belongs to the community. The respondents were directed to submit a status report by the next hearing.

It was also submitted before the court that sincere efforts were being taken to implement the directions issued by the Court as far as enlisting NGOs was concerned. 

It was informed, on behalf of NCERT that the training module titled "Training Module on Integrating Transgender Concerns in Schooling Process" had been prepared and was in the designing progress and after completion of the same it will be shared with all states, CBSE, KVS and NVS for their comments and suggestions. 

The Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority submitted that there was an ongoing program that was being conducted for the advocates at the District Level. They further sought time to file a status report incorporating the various programs conducted by the Legal Services Authority. 

The matter has been posted to 9th December 2022 for further hearing.