NALSAR Hyderabad Creates Gender Neutral Spaces On Campus, Drafts Policy For Trans Students

The National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad has opened a gender-neutral space for LGBTQ+ students.

The university has set up a gender-neutral living space inside the university to make the space inclusive.

The university took to its official Twitter handle announcing that this move will pave way for gender-neutral hostels in due course.

They have allocated the ground floor of Girls Hostel 6 as the gender-neutral space.

The university is also going to make common public spaces gender-neutral by allocating a washroom on the ground floor of the academic block as a gender-neutral washroom.

We are pleased to share that in our endeavour to make our campus a truly inclusive space, the ground floor of GH-6 has been designated as a gender neutral space with rooms allotted to students self-identifying as members of the LGBTQ+ community, with plans to move towards a pic.twitter.com/163JeSGQ99

¡ª NALSAR University of Law (@NALSAR_Official) March 26, 2022

The university already has an interim policy in place to address inclusivity concerns of the LGBTQ+ community and a final policy is in the works. The GH-6 building houses a hostel, which may later fully become a gender-neutral hostel.

In June 2015, a 22-year-old BA LLB student requested not to be identified by gender in the graduation certificate. The university promptly accepted the request and used the neutral prefix of ¡°Mx¡±. It was the beginning of the institution¡¯s efforts to make it inclusive.

Gender-neutral hostel in works

¡°We are pleased to share that in our endeavour to make our campus a truly inclusive space, the ground floor of GH-6 has been designated as a gender-neutral space with rooms allotted to students self-identifying as members of the LGBTQ+ community, with plans to move towards a gender-neutral hostel in due course. The washroom on the ground floor of the academic block has also been designated as a gender-neutral washroom,¡± the university said in a tweet.

File Photo

The ¡°Policy on Inclusive Education for Gender and Sexual Minorities¡¯¡¯ has been drafted by the university¡¯s trans policy committee. As per the draft policy, self-identification requiring no more than a written self-attested declaration will be the basis for recognition of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai¡¯s Deonar is the first campus in India to have a gender-neutral hostel, creating such a hostel for the first time in India in 2018.

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