After being rejected by the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB), transgender K Prithika Yashini (25) didn’t give up — in fact, she’s now taken charge in Salem as a Sub-Inspector.
Prithika had been rejected by the TNUSRB because of her gender and had to go through a legal battle for her rights.
And now, she has become the first transgender woman to join the police force in Tamil Nadu after receiving her appointment order on Monday.
According to The Hindu, she was one of the 22 people who got their appointment orders on Monday from Salem Police Commissioner Sumit Sharan.
Prithika had applied in 2015 to be an SI after the TNUSRB invited applications to fill 1,087 SI posts, but she was rejected because she did not fit into the male or female gender categories.
She took the matter to the Madras High Court which finally decreed that transgenders are eligible for recruitment in the police as sub-inspectors, and allowed Prithika to appear for the written test.
The court also directed TNUSRB to include transgenders as a “third category” by the time the next the recruitment process is carried out.
Expressing happiness over becoming the country’s first transgender Sub-Inspector, she vowed to fight against foeticide and prevent crime against women, apart from stressing for reservation for transgenders in education and jobs: “My aim is to become an IPS officer,” she said in a interview to The Deccan Chronicle.
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