Rural census: Transgenders migrating to urban areas

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 4

The first-ever census of rural India has revealed significant trends in respect of the third gender by showing the presence of only 74,286 transgenders in the entire rural population of 88 crore. Of this, 45.7 crore are males and 42.5 crore are women, the rest being the third gender.

The figure of 74,286 makes up just 15.16 per cent of India’s total transgender population of 4.9 lakh as counted for the first time by the Census of 2011. It reflects the urbanisation of transgender phenomenon considering 85 in every 100 transgenders are based in urban spaces.

The highest concentration of persons from the third gender in rural India is in Uttar Pradesh (12,916) and Bihar (9,868). In fact, the six states of UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha and Gujarat together account for over half (37,443) of all transgender rural population in the country.

Curiously, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are the only three regions to have reported “nil” third gender persons in their rural population; Puducherry and Sikkim have reported one each and Lakshadweep three.

Among the northern states, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir have the maximum population of transgenders in villages at 483 and 477, respectively. Haryana has 336, Himachal 61; Punjab 43, and Delhi 346.

LGBT activists say the new data clearly reflects two trends – one, transgender migration to urban spaces is a reality; two, transgender phenomenon is still a taboo in rural India with many persons from the third gender clearly not reporting their sexual orientation.

Abhina Aher, a leading activist and transgender herself, says, “Transgender persons are migrating from villages to cities in search of social acceptance and livelihoods. For transgenders, these are the two principal challenges. To meet both, they must move from villages, where they may have been born, to cities. The mainstay of transgender livelihood is still sex work, which is available only in the peripheries of big cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.”

Aher explained the concentration of transgenders in UP and Bihar saying these two states have a long-standing tradition of “launda dancers” who move with music parties that perform during marriages and make good money. “Launda dancers are an accepted part of UP and Bihar social milieu. Also these states are home to the deras of prominent hijra gurus who offer protection to transgenders. Begging, another source of transgender livelihood in these states, involves lesser violence in UP and Bihar than it does in other states,” Aher says.

LGBT activists also feel the Census 2011 data on transgenders and now the rural Census data cannot be 100 per cent error free. They rue over government agencies not co-opting the community for enumeration of the third gender even after the Supreme Court in April last year directed the Centre to register the third gender for all official purposes.

“We still don’t know what tools they use for enumeration and what questions they ask. If they have authentic data, they must tell us the numbers of all sub-categories of transpersons. Our fear is the agencies are only counting hijras who are easy to spot because of their concentration in deras which are located in known areas of all towns,” said Yashwinder Singh, another social activist.