Trans people in India demand equal access to public toilets
Like many transgender Indians, 32-year-old social worker Leela thinks twice before using a public toilet. After facing insults and hostility in the past, she often opts to put up with the discomfort until she gets home. “Using a public toilet is perhaps the easiest thing for a non-LGBTQ person.
But for a trans woman like me, it can be … a traumatic experience,” Leela told Openly in the capital, New Delhi, asking to use only her first name.
She recalled an incident several years ago when she was forced to leave a women’s toilet after other women objected to her presence. “Since then I realised that I have no other option but to hold my pee,” she said.
Repeatedly holding in urine for long periods of time can cause abdominal pain and increase the risk of urinary infections. “It’s really inhuman,” said Fred Rogers, an LGBTQ+ activist from the southern state of Tamil Nadu who filed a petition to Madras High Court earlier this year demanding at least one gender-neutral bathroom in all public spaces.
