Census 2011: Transgenders prepare to be counted for first time

• The government decided on inclusion of transgenders in the 2011 population count as a separate category.
• In the current practice, the community is included in the Census as ‘males’ The government’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) had proposed that during the 2011 Census, males will be given code one, females two and for transgenders it will be ‘code three’, which was accepted.
• Though, roughly, there are about 500,000 transgendered people across India, she said the biggest advantage of including transgenders in the Census is that the government will, for the first time, have an actual head count of the shunned community.