It’s been more than 7 years since the historic Supreme Court judgement that declared transgender people the 'third gender' and affirmed that the fundamental rights will be equally applicable to them and yet the on-ground situation has not improved till date. Have we done enough for them to feel safe in our society or even workspace? Have we successfully eliminated discrimination against them?
In 2017, Kochi Metro Rail Ltd., an enterprise owned by the Govt. of Kerala, appointed 23 transgender people in its workforce in a progressive move. In the first week of their job, 8 of the 23, all trans women, quit. This novel initiative by the state govt. failed because most of them found it impossible to make ends meet, some faced discrimination; it failed because of the vicious cycle & the social stigmas attached to the community.
In such a dysfunctional scenario where the transgender community faces discrimination in everyday life, legislations are passed & never executed, the systems are designed to fail any attempts to set that right, the bias and discrimination needs to stop from the society itself; meaning us. The only way to do that is by spreading awareness.
Transgender Welfare Equity and Empowerment Trust aka TWEET Foundation does exactly that. It is a community-based organisation in India based out of New Delhi and Mumbai and was established by seven trans activists to serve the young trans movement. TWEET is a completely trans-led organisation and works on providing social, psychological and economical support to the transgender community.
We, at AltUni, would like to thank Seema Bansal, Partner & Director - BCG and everyone at BCG for providing us with an opportunity and partnering with us for the Consulting Festival 2021 where we’ve managed to raised INR 2,75,000 for TWEET Foundation for the cause of welfare and equality of transgenders. We would like to thank Seema Bansal and BCG for this wonderful gesture that could not have happened without their initiative. Also, we would like to thank all the participants who registered for this program & made this happen. You’ve brought smiles on hundreds of faces!
The TWEET Foundation focuses on a wide variety of initiatives like spreading awareness about the needs and rights of transgenders and advocating for equality and non-discriminatory practices to the parliamentarians and society alike. It also organizes skill-building workshops and provides health and legal support to the transgender community.
Read more about the amazing work that TWEET Foundation is doing or make a donation by clicking here.
P.S. The widely popular, Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014 was passed in Rajya Sabha but it never made it past Lok Sabha. After repeated attempts, a more diluted version of the bill was passed as the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 which has been the subject of much criticism by activists, students and the transgender community alike. Till this date, countless other organizations like TWEET Foundation keep fighting for the basic and fundamental rights of the transgender community.