Transgender Entrepreneurship in India

Transgender, when we listen to this word we construct the idea of either begging at the traffic signal/ trains or involved in the prostitution making their lives visibly miserable. Historically, Transgender individuals in India have faced significant social stigma and discrimination, which hindered their ability to access education, employment and financial resources. These discriminatory practices have not only excluded them from accommodating them into mainstream society but also marginalized them leading to high rates of poverty, unemployment and limited access to education and healthcare. In 2014, the highest court of India in its NALSA vs. Union of India in its landmark judgement had stressed the need for the identification of transgender community in India. The supreme court of India not only recognized transgender people as the third gender and further affirmed their right to self-identification. This legal recognition has helped to promote inclusivity and create opportunities for transgender individuals to participate more actively in various aspects of society. Further, Government of India to restore the balance against the discriminatory practices of transgender had initiated a bill to end these practices and to empower the community. The bill titled, “Transgender Persons (protection of Rights) Act, 2019” prohibits discrimination against transgender individuals in areas such as education, employment, residence, healthcare, apart from providing a legal definition of a Transgender. One significant aspect of this bill is the establishment of National Council for Transgender Persons (NCT), which consist of: (i) Union Minister for Social Justice (Chairperson); (ii) Minister of State for Social Justice (Vice- Chairperson); (iii) Secretary of the Ministry of Social Justice; (iv) one representative from ministries including Health, Home Affairs, and Human Resources Development. Other members include representatives of the NITI Aayog, and the National Human Rights Commission. State governments will also be represented. Apart from this, the Council will also provide representation to five members from the transgender community and five experts from non-governmental organisations.

Despite the few efforts made by the government, the social stigma and discrimination still persists against the transgender community, due to the systemic barriers to their economic participation, including limited access to property rights, and financial services. To overcome these barriers and to foster socio-economic equality, transgender community should be pushed towards development of entrepreneurship skills to make them financially independent.

Transgender community despite winning the legal battle for their recognition are facing a myriad of challenges as they navigate the Indian business landscape. The success story of the individual transgender does not represent the larger community and, Transgender community apart from the pervasive discrimination in the society, lacks access to the avenues of resources that would foster economic growth and emancipate from social stigma. Transgender community encounter myriad of challenges as they venture on entrepreneurial journey like

Social Stigma: Transgender community in India face significant social stigma and discrimination. This discrimination extends to entrepreneurship, where transgender entrepreneurs may encounter prejudice from investors for investing in their businesses. Further, societal stigma and prejudice prevents people to utilize the services provided by aspiring transgender entrepreneurs to make a transformational shift to their lives.

Access to financial Resources: Societal pressures make it difficult to accept the Trans sexual orientation of their children by the Indian families resulting them to completely cut-off the ties. They are subjected to various intimidations before being abandoned without any financial resources at their disposal. Overcoming these hardships and to pave a way to lead a dignified life requires access to financial resources, however, lack of access to capital, reluctance of micro-financing institutions, disinterestedness of crowd funding and, absence of concrete governmental policy framework to provide financial support, throws an unfavourable environment to start their entrepreneurial journey.

Access to Infrastructure: Due to the societal constructions and prejudices of their sexual orientation, transgender community faces challenges in accessing infrastructure to establish and operate their businesses.

No-Mentorship Initiatives: Absence of initiatives to reach out to the transgender community to provide mentorship, training, networking opportunities, apart from equipping with various strategic and managerial skills makes it a challenging task to establish and successfully run an enterprise.

However, in the absence of anti-discriminatory laws against Transgender community it becomes essential for the government of India to devise a policy framework that prohibits the same. As the community is devoid of property rights, they require capital to break the barriers and lead a dignified life. Raising of capital would be possible only if the micro-finance institutions are able to provide financial assistance without collateral security. Government of India in a welcoming step had established National Council for Transgender Persons, this council has to be induced with robust mechanism to formulate and execute various policies concerned with the community, as per the socio-economic architecture of different regions. Further, transgender communities of being marginalized and deprived of their basic rights like education, health, employment from a long time necessitate a transformative initiative by government to construct an equitable and just society. This would be possible only when reservations are provided to the transgender community in education and employment opportunities, apart from conducting special loan disbursal drives to encourage them to take up the entrepreneurship.

Dr. K Vinay Kumar and T. Chandra Kanth Gupta are working at Maharashtra National Law University, Aurangabad.