The central and the state governments must look after the community, with creative leadership and broad involvement of the community
The worsening health inequities, psychological and economic impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately affected sexual and gender minority communities. The pandemic has particularly hit them hard with more than half of the population resorting to regular, daily wage jobs.
Structural inequalities and discrimination have caused the transgender population to fall behind in vaccination rates relative to others. The central and the state governments must look after the community, with creative leadership and broad involvement of the community. I believe some of the solutions below will be of some use:
1. Inclusion and sensitisation: Improving understanding of COVID-19 and vaccine acceptance among the transgender community can inform equitable implementation of vaccine delivery strategies. The government must address challenges and opportunities related to vaccine acceptance among gender minorities as it plans and implements the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Medical officers and volunteers must be sensitised about the community. They must help them understand the process, along with the pros and cons of vaccines. It is essential that the government arranges ‘safe spaces’ for the community and gets them vaccinated at the earliest. This can be achieved by transgender–specific vaccination centres.
Assam has started vaccination programmes for the transgender community by coordinating with associations working with transgender persons. The government of Maharashtra can take inspiration from Assam and start rolling out specific vaccination programmes for the community with the Maharashtra Transgender Welfare Board.
2. Identify strategies to achieve this goal: Vaccine distribution and policy plans must be changed immediately to identify the gender minority community as a beneficiary, considering the risk they have to take every day to feed themselves.
They must be given at least Rs 5,000 per month and free foodgrains must be distributed among them. Vaccine centres for the community must be set up in every constituency with the help of members of Parliament, legislative assemblies and councils, district magistrates and collectors. The involvement of civil society will be particularly significant in identifying and spreading awareness for the beneficiaries.
3. Accessibility and awareness: Vaccine accessibility is of paramount importance. The government should reconsider the use of an application (CoWIN, Arogya Setu) and instead, implement alternative registration markers to allow for mass-registration.
The central and state government should take the help of grassroot-level outreach, news channels, local newspapers, posters and loud speakers for better accessibility and registration. There is vaccine hesitancy among the community due to the notion that vaccines can cause possible damage to their bodies as some transgender persons are on hormonal therapy. The government should immediately verify the truth and start vaccinating the community after proper assessment.
4. Registration: According to the Union Ministry of Social Justice ad Empowerment, the advisory to transgender persons on COVID-19 accepts the following IDs to register for vaccination on the CoWin platform and Aarogya Setu App:
The list isn’t exhaustive and can possibly accommodate alternative IDs that are with the persons at the time of registration. The state should also take the onus of registration from the citizens to themselves for better facilitating the citizens and their needs.
5. Publish the list of healthcare facilities: The government should publish the list of addresses and contact numbers of healthcare centres / hospitals / ambulances and other services in the locality and take the onus away from the citizens to reduce confusion and panic.
6. Micromapping districts and possible identification makers: Micromapping works as a strategy in planning contingencies for minorities and disadvantaged groups. The state must also accommodate alternate identification methods such as physical paper cards and registers with symbols and easily communicable information, taking into account hurdles to digital / technological access, literacy, as well as identity markers.
Each ward / district can have responsible persons to follow up through call / text and physical certificates.
7. Vaccination incentives: In order to increase uptake, the state could involve small vaccine grants to beneficiaries in the form of deposits in their bank accounts, rations or grains.
Sanskruti Yagnik is a penultimate year law student at the University of Mumbai
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth
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