Have you ever seen a public toilet for transgenders? Imagine this scenario in your mind. One Womxn Veena, entered a women's public toilet and other women in that toilet started screaming and yelling at the security asking them what they allowed her inside the Public toilet. Cruel right. Just because she is a trans woman, do you think she doesn't have rights to use public toilets? The landmark judgement in the year 2014 National Legal Services Authority v.UOI legalized the transgenders as third gender. It’s been seven years of that judgement yet the transgender community is not treated equally in our society. The more sad reality is that they have not even given separate toilets in many cities, including the capital city of the country, Delhi.
A plea was made in the High court of Delhi by a final year student pursuing law through Advocate Rupinder Pal Singh. The plea said that transgender people were harrassed while using the public toilets of men and women. And the same was not even penalised under the Indian Penal Code which is the criminal law of the country. It further added that Article 14 and 21 of Indian constitution is getting violated regarding to the absence of separate toilets for transgender community.
The gender dysphoria the transgender community experiencing were due to biological reason in which they do not any control. As a result of such gender dysphoria they became transexual. All these are happening within their body without their consent and control. Despite the fact that transgenders were legalised as third gender people they were not respected by other gender people. The situation goes on like the Judgement passed by the Supreme Court in the year 2014 is fruitless. Among the 4,000 and cities or towns in the country only 3 cities have separate toilet facilities for transgenders.
Chapter IV of the Transgender Persons (protection of Rights) Act 2019 issues guidelines for the governments to take appropriate steps and to create welfare programmes for the transgender community and to address their needs. Laws related to the transgender community often failed to make emphasis on making separate facilities for them especially where there are separate facilities for Men and Women. Not only public toilet facilities, they should also be provided with separate buses. Even the institutions like Schools,colleges,restaurants and working places should maintain at least 2 toilets for the transgenders.
The plea made was adjourned by the Delhi High Court to September 13th 2021. Court should issue guidelines to check over the application of judgement made in the year 2014 in the case NLAS v. UOI where the emphasis was made for constructing public toilets for the transgender communities. The cause of failure for the implementation of the order should be identified and rectified. State governments should be allocated with funds for constructing separate public toilets in all the cities. Time to time report on the progressing of work should be submitted to the concerned authority. A rapid conclusion need to be arrived in this matter in order to stop the exploitation of transgnder community in accessing public toilets.