While it was already a challenge for Dr Sameera Mahamud Jahagirdar, anesthesiologist at JIPMER (Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research) in Puducherry, to explain to her family that she is a woman in a man’s body, she went on to discover that medical textbooks are biased and label homosexuality as a disease despite decriminalization of Section 377. She has reviewed several MBBS textbooks and is soon going to submit her findings to the Medical Council of India (MCI) for removal of these words.

Sameera, 41, got her sex reassignment surgery at the age of 37. She comes from a Muslim family from Pune and had to shift to Puducherry as she was against the idea of getting married. She started studying for her postgraduation in Puducherry but did not disclose her identity at the medical institution.

It was while pursuing her postgraduation that she realized that the medical education system was deficient. She said that the system is creating a stigma towards the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) community. Doctors are teaching wrong concepts. This is negative as the medical study portrays homosexuality as degrading.

Sameera has often faced sexual harassment at workplace, both by the patients and their relatives. She said that she’s made fun of outside the hospital.

She added that she is one of the panelists at the country’s first national level symposium on LGBTI in PGI. Until the age of 28, she could not realize the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity and she blames it on the textbooks.

Ashok Row Kavi, chairman, Humsafar Trust, a Mumbai-based NGO, said that this community has no legal and inheritance of property rights. Nothing is clear about pension or nomination for LIC for same sex partners. The government needs to introduce these reforms, he added.