Transgender has right to be with like-minded people: HC

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday held that a transgender person had "the right to wandering about or associate with like-minded people" and could not be compelled to be in the parental home.

"The freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India takes within its sweep the right of a person to live as a transgender," it said, quoting a Supreme Court judgment.

A bench of justices V Chitambaresh and K P Jyothindranath was passing a detailed order on a habeas corpus petition filed by a transgender person's mother, who claimed that the 25-year-old was a male and was being illegally detained by members of the transgender community.

In a brief order last week, the bench had disposed of the petition allowing the trans-woman, who had appeared before it, to live according to her will after a medical examination cleared her of any psychological problems.

A habeas corpus petition is filed to set at liberty a person believed to be kept under illegal detention.

The petitioner had lamented that she could not bear the sight of her "son" in a robe for women nor the rechristening of "himself" as "Arundhathi".

She had also said that her "son" had shown no inclination to return home and was wandering with other transgenders, thereby exposing himself to the risk of sexchange surgeries.

Rejecting her submissions, the bench said, "The transgender was undergoing an identity crisis, which reminds us of the oft-quoted words of Iago, the villain in Shakespeare's play Othello: I am not what I am."

"The transgender in question appeared before us dressed as a female and asserted that he is a transgender by birth and does not suffer from any sort of mental aberration as is being alleged by the petitioner," the court said.

The court had earlier directed medical/psychological evaluation of the transgender after it was alleged that the person was a psychiatric patient.