JOIN USBarred from sex change, youth threatens suicide
Twenty-one-year-old gender dysphoric student from Guwahati, Bidhan Barua threatened to commit suicide, after Bombay High Court on Wednesday rejected his petition seeking a directive to his parents not to interfere in his move to undergo sex-change operation.
The matter came up before justices S F Vajifdar and A R Joshi who after refusing to hear the petition adjourned it to May 7.
Barua, harbouring transgender identity perceptions, had come to Mumbai for a sex-change operation so that he can marry a flight lieutenant in Indian Air Force. His parents hearing about his decision rushed to Mumbai and threatened hospital authorities with legal action.
Bidhan, calling himself Swati, after the adjournment told the media that he had already written letters to the chief justice of India, chief justice of Bombay High Court and National Human Rights Commission, seeking an immediate intervention in the matter.
Expressing his anguish and dismay at the justice system, Barua in his letter to judiciary
has written: “I was due to undergo sex change surgery for which I left my job but my parents have blocked my bank account. I have no money to pay for the operation fees.
For the past two weeks, I am running from door to door seeking justice but the court does not have time to hear me. I don’t have money for food, lodging. So I am finally requesting the court to pass an immediate order against my family or grant me an order for an authorised suicide. I will kill myself if I do not get an order for my surgery by this evening. For my suicide, the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court will be responsible.”
Earlier Barua's counsel had informed the High Court that the parents of the petitioner have frozen his accounts. “This tantamount to transgression of fundamental rights as Barua is a major and is capable of taking decisions even relating to his gender identity.”
In the petition, Barua has argued that since childhood the gender identity of being a male, “ has been disturbing and causing anxiety to the female inside the male body. My parents do not understand the cause of my depression and ill-treat me.
“On March 2, I learnt about a sex-change operation and I collected money by doing odd jobs for the surgicial procedures costing around Rs 1.5 akh to Rs 3 lakh. In Guwahati, I even took a psychiatric profiling for the gender identity. And the result was positive. Thus I fled Guwahati and came to Mumbai.”
After landing in Mumbai, Barua took refuge at his cousin's house. However, even as he was about to get admitted to the hospital for the surgery, his father Supti Ranjan landed in the city, threatening the doctors with dire consequences.