New NCERT manual on transgender students silent on caste, patriarchy

The draft manual titled “Integrating Transgender Concerns in Schooling Processes”, prepared by a new 16-member committee convened by NCERT’s Department of Gender Studies head Jyotsna Tiwari, recommends the introduction of gender-neutral uniforms.
Written by Sourav Roy Barman
Over two years after it removed a document on inclusion of transgender children in schools, following an objection by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to suggestions on gender-neutral toilets and puberty blockers, the NCERT has released a fresh manual, which avoids the usage of not just those terms but also references to caste system and patriarchy that were highlighted in the previous one.
The draft manual titled “Integrating Transgender Concerns in Schooling Processes”, prepared by a new 16-member committee convened by NCERT’s Department of Gender Studies head Jyotsna Tiwari, recommends the introduction of gender-neutral uniforms.
“Some of the students, specially from Grade VI onward, have preference for clothes, particularly school uniform. They do not feel comfortable in a particular dress. Schools can introduce gender neutral uniforms which are comfortable, climate appropriate, fit and do not conform to a particular gender,” states the manual.
The previous project was coordinated by former head of NCERT Department of Gender Studies, Poonam Agrawal, who was transferred, along with Prof Mona Yadav of the same department, after the NCPCR raised concerns in November 2020. Tiwari was heading NCERT’s Department of Education in Arts and Aesthetics then.
The two manuals, prepared by two different committees, are starkly different in nature despite dealing with the same subject. For instance, the previous manual, which was titled “Inclusion of Transgender Children in School Education: Concerns and Roadmap”, categorically stated that while there is evidence of diverse genders and gender expression being socially accepted in the subcontinent since the Vedic age, “the dominant social system of caste patriarchy in India had relegated transgender persons to occupations that are stigmatised”.
“Disparities like socio-economic status, religion, caste, gender, and colour, many of which are typical to the Indian context, have a distinct role in breeding an imbalance of power. This imbalance of power has been suggested to aid bullying,” it said. Textbooks, it added, should enable transgender learners to relate knowledge to their own lived experiences and also equip all students “with a critical lens to explore a variety of issues that continue to confront us, namely caste, class and gender, gender and power relations, patriarchy and dominance, diverse sexual identities and marginalisation, etc”.
The new report underlines that diverse gender expressions have a long history of visibility and acceptance in India, where it was documented in various art forms and multiple texts of ancient period, including epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, but it steers clear of any engagement with the role of caste system or patriarchy in perpetuating stigmas.
While the previous report dealt extensively with the needs of all categories of gender non-conforming children, the latest one states that though there is a recognition of people with diverse sexualities and sexual orientations, including LGBTQIA+communities, “the present module is specifically focusing upon transgender persons by birth”.
As a result, it contains no information for teachers on dealing with children who may not be transgender but show signs of “Gender Dysphoria”, which indicates psychological distress resulting from a conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender at birth and the gender with which they identify, or the “agender” category, which the previous report used to describe as those “identifying themselves as neither man nor woman”.
On the issue of toilets, it suggests that a toilet may be assigned exclusively to transgender students. “In case there is a toilet for Children With Special Needs (CWSN) that can also be shared by transgender students,” it adds. The previous report had recommended that toilets for CWSN “may be earmarked ‘gender neutral’ toilets which both can use”.
Courtesy : TIE
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