SAATHII seek universal access to rights, health, and legal and social services for communities marginalised due to their HIV status, gender, or sexuality. Their LGBTQI work aims to amplify community voices. With GiveOut’s support, SAATHII established a Fellowship programme, now in its second year. This has created a new way of supporting LGBTQI activists who have the potential to advocate for social and policy change around LGBTQI rights through individual projects focused on gender and sexuality. For Trans Awareness Week, we spoke with L. Ramki Ramakrishnan, the Vice President at SAATHII about the legal struggles trans people face in India and the lack of visibility for trans masculine people in the region.
Could you introduce yourself, and the work of your organisation? Why were you established?
I’m L. Ramki Ramakrishnan, and I work with the non-profit Solidarity and Action Against the HIV Infection in India (SAATHII) as its Vice President. SAATHII was established in 2000 by a group of scientists, doctors, and social activists to advocate for anti-retroviral therapy access for people living with HIV, and for decriminalizing consensual same-gender relationships which were considered a crime under the colonial sodomy law. SAATHII was registered as a non-profit in 2002.
What important successes have you had as an organisation or movement?
As an organisation, we have been part of the queer rights movement in India that led to reading down of the sodomy law in 2018. We have helped the government progress towards elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Other successes include inclusion of LGBTIQ+ mental health in the state mental health policy of Tamil Nadu, contribution to a curriculum on gender and sexuality for training high school teachers across the country, a transgender health curriculum for nurses, and advocacy that contributed to the recent 2021 orders of Madras High Court on protection of queer and trans couples.
“Within the trans community in India, trans masculine persons face a great deal of invisibility and lack of recognition, as most people associate transness only with the hijra community.”
What are some of the major challenges that the trans community faces now within your context?
Despite legal successes such as the Supreme Court verdict on trans rights in 2014 and a trans rights act in 2019, India’s trans communities continue to face pervasive stigma and prejudice across institutions including families, schools, workplaces, and healthcare. Even a task as basic as being able to change one’s name and gender on official documents is fraught with bureaucratic challenges, hostility, and gatekeeping. Within the trans community in India, trans masculine persons face a great deal of invisibility and lack of recognition, as most people associate transness only with the hijra community.
“Inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming children in schools attracts the most amount of backlash from conservatives claiming to be concerned about rights of children and protection of family values.”
What does the future look like for trans rights in your region or globally?
In India, the vibrant trans movement is working towards implementation of the trans laws on the ground whilst simultaneously tackling societal attitudes and prejudice. I am optimistic that the economic inclusion of trans persons will increase in the next 5-10 years. At the same time, inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming children in schools attracts the most amount of backlash from conservatives claiming to be concerned about rights of children and protection of family values, both in India and other parts of the world. This requires concerted action.
On Trans Awareness Week, what is a central message you want the world and allies to know?
As with every other ‘week’ and ‘day’, our ultimate goal is to dispense with the need for an Awareness Week by normalising trans existence and visibility and securing rights for all. Until such time, we would like the world to understand that trans lives matter, learn about the diversity within the trans spectrum, and commit to supporting trans liberation.
How can allies best support the trans community?
Listen to trans voices, cultivate empathy, and support trans individuals and movements by speaking out against trans-negativity.