This trans woman fights for quota in government jobs

It was at CST three months ago that Satara's Vinayak Kashid last used a public restroom.

- Sharmila Ganesan

With a bladder held for over 350 chugging kms, the salwar-kameez-clad electrical engineering post-graduate---who used to deliberately avoid drinking water while studying inside a library in Karad--alighted on the railway station in August this year and ignored the strangers in the women's toilet queue who glared as though the 30-year-old had alighted from another planet.

"The gender of my soul...does not match the gender of my body," says Kashid, who drew the public gaze recently when the Mumbai bench of the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal directed the state government to ensure that one post out of 603 vacancies of police subinspector is reserved for transgender persons.

The directive--in which Maharashtra was reminded of the 2014 Supreme Court order that makes it mandatory for all states to reserve one position in all public service positions-came as a result of an application filed by the M-Tech degree holder whose official name is Vinayak but answers most readily to the name Veena.

Having undergone a gender reassignment surgery in Pune in July 2021, longhaired Kashid---who was assigned male at birth and who is now another Rs 1.5 lakh operation away from growing breasts--was seeking to be considered as a trans woman for the post of sub-inspector.