New Delhi : A large number of transgenders pledged their eyes at Jantar Mantar on Wednesday even as they thanked the nation’s apex court for giving them a third gender identity. It was on this day last year that the Supreme Court had delivered a landmark judgment granting the transgender community the right to identify their gender.
Mumbai based trangender activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, who announced the noble gesture on behalf of the community, said, “Eyes do not discriminate. The perspective and perception of people do. This Eye for an Eye campaign is a symbolic event aimed at reducing the stigma.”
Clad in a bright pink Marathi silk sari, Laxmi said that eye donation pledges from the community have crossed 16,000 and they have vowed to bring the number up to two lakh.
The Joint Secretary of the Eye Bank Association of India, Dr Rishi Mohan, the Chief Executive Officer of online optical store Lenskart, Mr Peyush Bansal and social activist Swami Agnivesh, were all praise for the manner in which the marginalised transgender community has volunteered to pledge their eyes.
Hailing the initiative as “laudable”, Dr Mohan said that it will serve to meet the requirement of corneas. “We need about two lakh corneas every year. We need to double our collections to restore sight to persons in urgent need of corneal transplants. I hope their gesture will make society soften its attitude to them. I have received 16,000 pledges. Once we receive 16,000 forms signed by the individual donors, we will forward them to the eye banks across the country. It is only then that the respective eye banks will send the pledge cards.’’
The gift of sight by these large-hearted human beings to those in need of corneal transplant should serve as an eye opener to a homophohic society that metes out sub human treatment to them and discriminates against them from cradle to grave.
While most members of the transgender community held pink-blue placards that read, “Thank you, Supreme Court of India’, others held placards that read, “We are right here”, “Man. Woman. Best of both” and “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are here too’ and “Hello people, we are people too.”
Although most transgenders who had come from various States, including Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, said that their lives have not really changed after the judgment, they are grateful to the sensitive judges — Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice K.S. Radhakrishan — who had passed this judgment.
Laxmi Naryan Tripathi said that the transgender community has been treated as “a transparent glass.” She said that policies are made but implementation takes time. Rome was not built in day. I am optimistic that things will change slowly.”
