The first trans inclusive toilets in Delhi, the capital of India, are currently under construction and are due to be opened shortly. According to the India Times, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) allocated a portion of its 2021-2022 budget to building safe, sanitary toilets for the city’s transgender population. In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court officially recognised trans people as ‘the third gender’ and encouraged local authorities to create more trans inclusive facilities.
Mysuru was the first city in the country to provide safe toilets for trans people, with Delhi now following in its footsteps. HP Singh, a senior NDMC official heading the building project, said the city’s trans community has long-awaited inclusive facilities: “Construction of toilets exclusively for the third-gender, especially in busy marketplaces, has been a long-pending demand from the transgender community in Delhi.”
India’s neighbouring country, Pakistan, has also seen a rise in trans inclusive public toilets. In November 2020, the Saaf Bath project was set up in Karachi, which is building privately managed toilets out of old shipping containers, with the aim of providing safe and sanitary facilities for trans people, women and the disabled. The project is due to provide 500 facilities over the next three years, with each costing around 2 m Pakistani rupees ($12,700). Salman Sufi, the head of the project, said: “Women, disabled citizens and transgender people are our special focus”, and hopes the facilities will improve hygiene standards for vulnerable people in the country.
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