Context: Recently, the Indian Home Ministry is thinking of commissioning transgender people as officers in the various security and paramillitary forces in India.
Key Points

• The ministry is at the concluding stage of consultations with central paramilitary forces—BSF, CRPF, ITBP, CISF and SSB—on incorporating ‘transgender’, along with male and female, in the rules for the recruitment examination for assistant commandants in central forces, starting 2020.
• The move follows enactment of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, in December that prohibits discrimination of a transgender person in education, employment, healthcare services, accommodation, right to acquire property and other public services and facilities.
• The department of personnel and training had requested all central ministries and departments to modify examination rules and provide for inclusion of ‘transgender’ as a separate category of gender, in conformity with the Act.
• The MHA move can be expected to spur recruitment of transgender persons in other areas, including the armed forces and state police organisations.

About Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016

• The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016, defines a transgender person as one who is partly female or male; or a combination of female and male; or neither female nor male.
• Additionally, the bill states that the person’s gender must not match the assigned gender at birth.
• Every transgender person in the country must obtain an identity certificate which will be used as the proof of recognition of identity as a transgender person and to avail all the rights under the Bill.
• The identity certificate would be granted by the District Magistrate on the recommendation of a Screening Committee.
• The screening committee for recommending the certificate would comprise a medical officer, a psychologist or psychiatrist, a district welfare officer, a government official, and a transgender person.
• The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 prohibits discriminating with transgender people in education, employment, healthcare and other areas.
• The Bill directs the central and state governments for providing welfare schemes to the Transgender community in these areas.
• The Bill also provides for the punishment of up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine for offences like compelling a transgender person to beg, denial of access to a public place, physical and sexual abuse, etc.