Other Sex: A Study on Problems of Transgender women of District Srinagar

Abstract

The rationale of this paper is to accentuate the problems of transgender women and to formulate a set of recommendations to address these problems. A transgender woman is a male to female transgender and a transgender is a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender (Oxford Dictionary). They face harassment from multi-dimensional sources, from parents, teachers, peers, society... and it includes each sphere of their lives. In Jammu and Kashmir there is no Transgender welfare Board therefore the problems of the third gender remain unattended. There is an immense need to address their problems in order to make them fully functional human beings by guaranteeing and safeguarding their rights. Present study is an empirical study in which the desired information (socio-economic profile) was extracted by using an interview schedule and the mental health was studied by using MINI (Mini Neuropsychiatric Interview) module A,C,E,G,H,I,L. Hundred respondents were selected through snowball technique. The purpose for using this sampling technique is that the transgender women in Kashmir doesn’t live in communities as is typical of other states in India. The social recognition of transgender women is very low in Kashmir and so their visibility. Therefore the exact number of the transgender women in Jammu and Kashmir is not known. It can be concluded from the study that the intervention of the problems of transgender women need the individual, community and policy level approach.