Huge Step Towards Gender Inclusive Education, 27 Schools In Delhi Certified As Trans-Friendly

In a big leap towards more inclusive and homogeneous system of education, 27 schools which include 25 government schools have been certified as ¡°trans-friendly¡± or transgender inclusive.

The development has happened after more than eight months, the heads of the schools in Delhi were first introduced to transgender identity and rights and they were sensitised on the requirements and support needed by the transgender students.

The small milestone in the pilot project called ¡®Purple Board¡¯ initiated by an NGO were celebrated in an award ceremony with an aim to make education accessible for transgender as well as gender non-confirming children and this will be achieved by addressing transphobia and further first identifying and then eliminating trans-bullying. The Indian Express reported.

Representational image, AFP

The award was modelled on the flag with blue, pink and white horizontal stripes and this flag represents the transgender community and it¡¯s testimony that smaller steps have been taken to make schools more inclusive especially for transgender and gender non-confirming children.

The NGO Society for People¡¯s Awareness Care and Empowerment (SPACE) initiated this pilot project with the Directorate of Education, Delhi government and the project was also supported by the Netherlands Embassy.

In October last year, the heads of the schools attended a workshop organised by the SPACE and the workshop was further followed by workshops with nodal teacher. This process of workshops led to on-on-one interaction with students from classes IX to XII in more than 4-5 workshops organised in every school.

In the workshops, the transgender members of the SPACE educated and sensitised students on the meaning of transgender and what problems the children from the community encounter at schools.

The most revelatory activity or instrument that helped to cleared doubts of the students was the ¡°anonymous question box¡±, the director of the SPACE, Anjan Joshi told The Indian Express.

¡°We would ask the teacher to step out during the session and the children would slide into a box the questions they didn¡¯t wish to ask in open. ¡®Do transpeople have children?¡¯ was one such question. Many children came out as trans in their anonymous messages. In the beginning, many school principals did not welcome the idea of conducting these workshops saying their schools do not have any trans-students. But there was not a single school in which a child didn¡¯t come out to us as trans,¡± Joshi said.

Representational image, AFP

When asked whether the initiative faced any resistance by the student, Joshi said, ¡°None at all. However, there were three other private schools whose allowed only the first workshop. They did not like the idea of interacting with children and dropped out of the project.¡±

A class XII student of a Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Salma also expressed her views.

¡°When I saw transgender people, I wondered how they behaved differently. I later realised that they are just like us, and that they are merely expressing what they feel. Their feelings are different from the bodies they were born into. They should be able to study in the same schools as the rest of us and and feel secure,¡± Salma said.

Salma¡¯s school has been certified as trans-friendly.