New Delhi: Dr. Vignesh Dhananjayan, whose chosen name Garagi, was born in a village in the Tamil Nadu-half state border and was given “men” at birth. When she was about 10 years old, she realized her gender identity and expression as a transgender person. At the age of only 25, Gargi is now one of some transgender doctors in India.
Dr. Gargi is one of the few transgender doctors who have taken their fight for reservation in postgraduate courses in medical education.
In a petition filed earlier this month in the Delhi High Court, Dr. Gargi has challenged an admission notification issued by All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi for admission to PG course in the July 2025 season, a prospectus for the operation of the joint entrance (INI-CET) of national importance.
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INI-CET, AIIMS, Delhi is organized, for admission to postgraduate medical courses (MD, MS, DM, MCH, MDS) in 23 designated institutions of national importance including 19 AIIMS.
Dr. Gargi’s petition states that notice does not underline any scheme or policy for horizontal reservation for transgender persons. Horizontal reservation refers to the quota separately for some underprivileged groups, such as women or disabled persons, each vertical reservation category such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. So the horizontal quota is applied separately in each vertical categories.
Therefore, Dr. Gargi has demanded that the entry notice be declared unconstitutional. She is also demanding a fresh notice that provides horizontal reservation in compartment for transgender individuals by securing 1 percent seats for such individuals in each vertical category.
“This is a personal battle for me … To come here from my village, it seems that I have crossed the mountains to achieve things that were easily accessible to many of my colleagues. Gargi said.
His petition was mentioned by his lawyer Rohin Bhatt on 9 April, but the Delhi High Court refused an immediate hearing.
Another petition was filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court last month, pointing to the lack of reservation for transgender individuals, challenges the notice for national eligibility-cum-entry test for PG courses (NEET-PG 2024).
This petition Dr. B. V and was filed by Bhagirabha Mithra, demanding horizontal reservation for transgender individuals.
Back in 2023, Telangana High Court Dr. The coal came to aid the help of Ruth John Paul, directing the authorities that in order to expand the benefits of the third gender position in addition to the status of the third gender, either under the Central Kota or for NEET-PG 2023, considering admission to any course under the State Kota for NEET-PG 2023.
This High Court has given Dr. In 2023 for Prachi Rathore, a uniform interim order passed, directed the authorities to expand the benefits of the third gender status in addition to the status of their prescribed tribe, while considering its entry into the third round of consultation.
‘A doctor for all’
Dr. Gargi is currently a fifth year student, who is working as an intern at a medical college in Tamil Nadu. After ending the years of bullying, Dr. Gargi is the first generation doctor. He is now determined to help the post-graduate study forward-for a stable future, to ensure representation for transgender individuals in medicine, and also to help the community.
He told Theprint that he does not agree with the stereotype that a doctor in the trans community could just focus on his community and may not be an expert.
“Yes, I want to treat the Trans/Quir community, but I also want to help everyone regardless of their gender and sexual orientation … My passion is to serve everyone, and as MBBS-only (doctor), I can do much less,” he said.
In 2014, the Supreme Court, popularly known as NALSA decision, recognized the fundamental rights of transgender individuals under the Constitution of India, including the right to self -determination of gender identity.
The 2014 order directed the Central and State Governments to take steps to behave citizens as social and educationally backward classes, and expand all kinds of reservation in matters of admission in educational institutions and for public appointments.
However, DR Gargi Advocate Rohin Bhatt, a lawyer, believes that one thing that went wrong in the Nalsa verdict was that it is a “wrong” caste for the penis, and provides transgender individuals to behave citizens as social and educationally backward classes (SEBCs).
He said, “A lot of mandate of the Constitution is clear. The right to reservation is a fundamental right within 15 (4) and 16 (4), as far as public employment is concerned … In my view, Nalsa decision provides enough space to provide horizontal reservation,” he said. He said that “courts should be severely engaged with graded inequality that transgender people face”.
Many critics within and outside the transgender community have often criticized clubbing of transgender individuals within the SEBC category, seeking a separate classification for the community in terms of quota. Among other things, they argue that it does not recognize the different forms of discrimination faced by the community, and fails to recognize the contradictory nature of oppression that transgender individuals who are also related to groups of margins such as Dalits or Adivasis.
Transgender rights activist Vyjayati Vasant Mowgli is also an opinion that the Nalasa decision in the context of reservation is “flawless”, as it believes that transgender individuals can be brackets under the SEBC category.
“At its end, social justice is better completed if people are given a slightly more compensation than getting out of a sea OBC pool,” he told the manprint.
Adding, “If there is a partition suit in the property, then if there is a certain method of division that reduces all those that gives a little more grant to all of them, then they will prefer the latter in the east. The latter is the one that does horizontal reservation. Technically, eternal, eternal, they only get more through the reservation.”
‘A house on the40th floor’
Petitions by transgender doctors for reservation in PG courses are the latest in a string of such arguments in various high courts for quota for transgender individuals in various businesses. For example, following a petition filed in the Karnataka High Court, in July 2021, the state government amended its rules to give 1 percent horizontal reservation for transgender persons in civil services.
“The courts should ask the government why it took 11 years for the appropriate governments to bring these provisions. Look at the inequality and inequality for transgender individuals to reach knowledge and resources,” Mowgli said.
Mowgli said that Karnataka petition is related to employment and not education.
“Roughly, it is being given a house on the 40th floor, with no ladder or lift. Therefore, of course, it is in our name, but how do we go there?” He asked.
Advocate Bhatt said that Section 8 (1), 2019 of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 states that the appropriate government will take steps to fulfill the complete and effective participation of transgender individuals and their inclusion in the society.
Section 13 of the Act also states that every educational institution funded by the government or recognized by the government will provide “inclusive education … without discrimination to transgender individuals”.
Bhatt said, “The fact that many transgender individuals across the country have to contact the courts not only for medical education but also for legal education, to seek their fundamental rights, there is a tragic situation of cases.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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