Tamil Nadu: Anna University adds transgender option in application forms after student's four-year battle

Chennai: In a huge win for a candidate who fought to insert the transgender option in Anna University's application forms for four years, finally saw his efforts come to fruition as the institute has agreed to the request.

Anna University, which is a public state university, made an addition of the transgender option in their application forms. The candidate has made his request known publicly on various social media platforms as well.

Anna University also issued the candidate's grade sheet and relevant certificates after his pleas were finally heard by the officials.

The changes made in candidate's documents?

The candidate, Arun Karthick, stated in one of his posts that he has been constantly checking up with the University with regards to changes in certificates and marksheets.

Arun eventually got the change made with the University also giving a fee exemption in a change fee of Rs. 13,000 and Rs. 3,500 for printing the edited certificate, according to a report by Jagran Josh.

According to reports, this is the first time that a queer candidate urged to be referred to as a transgender with no such provision being available to the candidates earlier.

The candidate had a magistrate’s acceptance order of being mentioned as transgender in important government documents, including Classes 10 and 12 certificates, bank passbooks, voter’s ID, and an Aadhaar card.

Anna University followed the direction of the government gazette to include transgender in the gender column in its application form.