CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi has urged prime minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the transgender community is also enumerated in the Census 2011.

Describing the massive exercise as a milestone since the first ever National Population Registry was going to be prepared, Karunanidhi, in a letter to the prime minister on Saturday, sought that necessary provision be made in the census format to enumerate trangenders. “There are a number of persons in the country, who are called transgenders. I suggest that they may also be enumerated and necessary provision may be made in the format,” he said.

The move is seen as yet another initiative of the state government to draw transgenders into the social mainstream. Tamil Nadu has taken several pioneering initiatives for the welfare of this community in recent months. Tamil Nadu was the first state to form a welfare board for transgenders in 2008, headed by the social welfare minister. The state government also issued separate ration cards to transgenders. Tamil Nadu government also added the option of third gender in the application forms of state-run schools and colleges for unhindered admission of transsexuals in educational institutions.

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France has become the first country in the world to remove transsexualism from its list of recognised mental illnesses.

The decision was announced by France’s Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, on the eve of last year’s International Day Against Homophobia, but did not come into effect until last month.

Bachelot made the announcement parallel to the launch of a campaign petitioning the World Health Organisation to do the same. The campaign was endorsed by some of the country’s leading minds who put their names to a letter published in French newspapers.

In France, hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery are funded by the state.

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