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Ludhiana: Social stigma, biases keeping away transgender voters
Mohini Mahant, a transgender, claims Ludhiana has over 2,000 trangenders, but only 143 of them are on the voter list
“Officials laugh at us when we step into a government offices. How are we supposed to get the documents to get ourselves registered for voter cards?” asked Mohini Mahant, a transgender, who is on the Lok Adalat panel. She has been encouraging her community to exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
She claims Ludhiana has over 2,000 trangenders, but only 143 of them are on the voter list. And even for this small number, only 20.7% turned up to vote in the 2019 polls.
“The basic reason behind all their problems is discrimination,” Mohini said.
“When I ask my community members to avail government facilities, they complain that we get unwelcoming stares and responses. Even if I convinced them to go, their experience was so bad that they would never listen to me again,” she lamented.
Mohini is also the sweep icon for the community in Punjab. She is supposed to encourage electoral awareness in her community, but she claims that discrimination in all walks of life has pushed the community to the margins and made them apathetic to the mainstream.
“Discrimination in educational and workspaces leaves the transgender community with no option but to turn to prostitution to make ends meet. And that opens a whole new door of problems. In the night, transgenders are looted, abused, and beaten up and when they reach the police for justice, instead of registering complaints, they are held responsible for what befalls them.”
When asked how the public representatives had helped the community, she said, “No candidate has ever tried reaching out to us, let alone do something for us.”
When asked what the administration was doing to encourage the transgender community to exercise their democratic right, additional district election officer Smit Sareen said, “We have organised a special camp for the community.”
