Transgender Community included in Backward Class in the state | 21 Apr 2023

Why in News?

On 19 April 2023, the state government issued a notification to include the transgender community in the list of Madhya Pradesh state’s Backward Classes.

Key Points

• The Transgender (Kinnar) community has been added under the Madhya Pradesh State Backward Classes Commission Act-1995.
• It is known that on April 11, the cabinet headed by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan approved the proposal of the Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department to include the Kinnar (transgender) community, which is running away from the mainstream of development, in the list of backward classes.
• The decision of the state government to include Transgenders (Kinnar) in the OBC category has been taken in compliance with a Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court had ruled that they are considered backwards in terms of education, socially and economically.
• According to the Social Justice Department, there is no certified number of Eunuchs/Transgenders in the state. While the Economic and Statistics Department has registered the number of eunuchs as about 6 thousand, in which improvement has also been done in some districts.
• There are 1432 eunuchs registered in the records of the Election Commission in the state. A maximum of 176 eunuchs are in Bhopal, while 75 are registered in Ujjain, and 102 in Indore.
• It is worth mentioning that on 24 February 2023, the state government issued an order under the Madhya Pradesh Transgender (Protection of Rights) Rules-2021 (Transgender Protection of Rights Rules-2021) and created a separate category for the transgender community in direct recruitment in jobs. Along with this, now the option of transgender along with male and female has also become available in the application form for government jobs.