The Karnataka State Police’s attempt at implementing 1% reservation for transgender persons has ended up creating confusion, primarily due to the authorities’ ignorance regarding the trans community and the terminologies to be used while addressing them. The resulting situation has also left some transgender candidates in the state feeling that they have missed out on an opportunity due to no fault of their own.
In September 2022, the police department called for the direct recruitment of 3,064 constables for the City Armed Reserve and District Armed Reserve. Both the forces have hired only cisgender men so far. In a bid to implement the reservations, this time the notification used the Kannada words “samanya purusharu” and “purusha tritiya linga”, which would directly translate to “ordinary men” and “male third gender.”
The terms ‘purusha tritiya linga’ or ‘male third gender’ are not acceptable while referring to any section of the trans community. The word purusha here — a vague term that could mean either “male” or “man” — had especially become the point of confusion for many transgender applicants.
Several trans women applied for the job, assuming that the notification was referring to any trans person with biological male characteristics, or were assigned male at birth.
“I haven’t had surgery yet. Since the notification said ‘transgender male’, I thought they meant trans persons who had not had surgery and were biologically male,” said Riddhi, a 27-year-old trans woman from Mangaluru. “See, the Transgender Act says that surgery is a personal choice, and that we can identify as a transgender person even without it. And I am a trans person, so I applied.”
A transgender person is someone whose gender identity does not match with the biological sex they were assigned at birth. A trans man is a person who was assigned female at birth but whose gender identity is that of a man, and a trans woman is someone who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity is that of a woman. Some trans persons may also not subscribe to the man-woman binary.
As per Section 6 of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019, a trans person can apply to the District Magistrate for recognition as a transgender person, for which they can be issued a TG certificate — short for ‘Transgender Certificate’. This certificate does not specify whether the person identifies as man or woman. Further, Section 7 under the Act says that a person with a TG certificate can also apply for an official change in gender after undergoing surgery.
Like Riddhi, Gaganashree — a 30-year-old trans woman from Chikkamagalur — also applied for the job because she thought the job was for trans persons in general. “My transgender certificate clearly states that I am a trans person. But if the police department wanted only men, why did they accept my application? They even made us undergo the physical examination. Did they think I am a man? This shows that they have no idea about transgender persons. They should not have issued the notification without talking to the community,” Gaganashree said.
Activists have since pointed out that the words used in the notification were not only inaccurate, but were also not in line with the Transgender Rights Act. The Kannada word used in the notification - ‘purusha’ - is vague and could mean either male or man. The word ‘linga’ refers to ‘biological sex’, while ‘lingatva’ refers to ‘gender’. Used by themselves, the words ‘purusha’ and ‘sthree’ mean male and female respectively, but if they are prefixed with the term ‘lingatva alpasankhyata’ (gender minority), it would mean trans man or woman. The term ‘lingatva alpasankhyata’ can be pre-fixed to ‘hengasu’ (woman) and ‘gandassu’ (man) to refer to ‘trans man’ and ‘trans woman’. For cisgender men and women, the word ‘cis’ should be prefixed to the Kannada words for men and women instead of ‘samanya’, which means common or ordinary.
‘Insensitive recruitment process’
The written exam for the recruitment was held in different centres across the state in January, and the physical examinations were held in the first week of July. Riddhi said that the manner in which the application and examination processes had unfolded was insensitive, and displayed a stark lack of understanding among authorities about transgender persons.
Even if the police department made a mistake and did not realise that trans women were writing the recruitment exams when the jobs were only meant for men, Riddhi said that they could have at least corrected their error when the physical exams were held.
With regard to the physical standards and endurance tests, the job notification had said that the same rules would be applicable to “ordinary men” and the “male third gender.” The officers at the recruiting centres, however, made even the visibly trans women undergo the same physical exams as the male candidates.
Riddhi has been undergoing hormone therapy for the past two years, due to which her body has changed and she has developed breasts. “During the physical exam, they told me to take off my shirt so they could take measurements. Would they ask a cisgender woman to do that?” Riddhi asked. When she explained to the officials that she was a trans woman, they allowed her to keep her shirt on and directed a female constable to take her measurements. “Even after this, they allowed me to take the physical exam. Why?”
Due to hormone therapy, her ability to do physical tasks has also changed. “They made me run along with men. We can’t run like cis men or get the same results in long-jump and shot-put,” she said.
Other trans women too faced the same problem.
Mallika K, a 25-year-old from Malur in Kolar district, underwent gender affirming surgery in April 2022 in Pune. She said that the police personnel at the physical exam centre were encouraging, even though some of them kept staring at her and repeatedly asked her if she was the same person as in her SSLC marks card photo. “They made me run and do shot-put with the men. They were encouraging on the whole, but I couldn’t pass the physical exam.”
It was only after they failed the physical exam held in the first week of July that the imbroglio came to light. “We don’t know if any transgender person passed the exams. But those who failed the physical test approached us for help,” said Nisha Gulur, a human rights activist.
That’s when she and other activists reached out to people in their network across all the districts in the state, and realised that up to 11 trans women had applied for jobs meant for men. Their experiences with the physical test indicated that the state police did not have a clear-cut policy with regard to the reservation for trans persons. Only two of the 11 trans women had undergone gender affirming surgeries. The rest identify as trans persons, but some of them have not come out to their families and still have identity documents which contain the names given to them by their families and the gender assigned to them at birth.
Lack of clear-cut criteria
Vaishali Byali, co-chairperson of the Movement for Gender and Sexual Pluralism, said that trans women should not have been clubbed with cisgender men for the physical exam.
But even otherwise, she said, the police department should create a separate criteria for the physical measurements of transgender persons. “Many trans persons run away from their homes due to stigma and live on the streets, due to which their nutrition is poor. So they may have smaller bodies compared to cisgender people,” she said.
A senior IPS officer told TNM that each unit within the Karnataka State Police had its own criteria for recruitment, and the cadre and recruitment rules for each unit would have to be amended to make them inclusive of transgender people. The amended rules would have to be approved by the government. “What happened now is that they followed the rules without actually framing them,” he added, referring to the ignorance about the trans status of the applicant and the lack of a clear policy for the physical exam and endurance tests.
Citing the example of Tamil Nadu – which hasn’t yet implemented reservation – the officer said that the rules for trans persons were clearly framed. There, transgender persons can choose whether to apply as male, female, or transgender, and the rules applicable to each choice are clear.
The Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board has proper criteria in place for transgender candidates with regard to the physical exam and relaxations for age. For the physical exam, trans women are to be clubbed with cis women, while trans men are to be clubbed with cis men. If the transgender person has not chosen a binary gender, the criteria for cis women would apply.
The IPS officer said that the police were working on changing the rules in a manner that would be convenient to the transgender community, although he declined to say when this would be done.
Meanwhile, activist groups and the trans women who applied for jobs are deliberating ways to remedy the situation, including legal recourse and meeting senior police officers to seek a re-examination and relaxation of age criteria as is the case with ex-Army candidates. One of their major demands is for the Department of Women and Children, which oversees transgender welfare, to set up a coaching and training programme such as the one that the Department of Social Welfare runs for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates.
While these deliberations continue, the women who applied for these jobs feel something has been taken away from them.
Riddhi, who dropped out of an engineering course and had been disowned by her family, was clutching at straws when she applied for the job. “My family doesn’t want me. At every job I’ve had, I’ve been harassed after co-workers realised that I’m a trans person. I don’t want to beg or do sex work. This reservation was given to us, and it should not end up being just for show. They should create an atmosphere and process for us that enables us to succeed and not fail these tests. It feels like they gave us this opportunity, only to snatch it away,” she added.
Mallika said that she used to beg on the streets. “When I heard of this job, I thought I would find acceptance in society. A police officer has standing in society, and our [transgender] community faces a lot of problems. If I got this job, I could also be of help to others in the community.”