Nalsar University creates gender-neutral space on its campus

Hyderabad: Nalsar University of Law has designated one floor of a building on its campus as a gender-neutral space and has allotted rooms to students self-identifying as members of the LGBTQ+ community. The varsity also has plans to designate a hostel as gender-neutral.

The designated space is the ground floor of the GH-6 building. Apart from this, the washroom on the ground floor of the academic block has been designated as a gender-neutral washroom.

According to Tweets by the varsity's official Twitter handle, Nalsar has an interim policy in place to address inclusivity concerns of the LGBTQ+ community and is in the process of drafting a final policy.

Transgender RTI activist Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli welcomed the development, but said the university should have done this much earlier. "Being an institution of law education, it was long overdue. Nevertheless, better late than never. It may not be a lot but it is a good baby step."

Mogli pointed out that other government law institutes such as NLSIU (National Law School of India University, Bengaluru) and NUJS (National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata) have had comprehensive transgender policies in place since a few years now.

In one of the university's earlier efforts of inclusivity, in 2015, a BA LLB student at Nalsar had placed a request to not be identified by any gender in the graduation certificate. The varsity had agreed to the student's request and in the certificate, instead of using the prefixes Mr or Ms, had used the neutral prefix 'Mx'.