Noor Shekhawat Becomes 1st Transgender To Get Admission In Rajasthan University – News18

We live in a society where rights for the LGBTQ+ community still need to be fought for since it is a community looked at with taboo and social disapproval. Things have however turned brighter in the last decade with many members of the community achieving social feats that were considered beyond their reach till just a few years ago.

And if we are talking about achievers, one cannot miss mentioning 30-year-old Noor Shekhawat from Rajasthan, who became the first transgender person in Rajasthan to have been issued a birth certificate with gender as transgender on it. And now, she has also been able to get admission into a college affiliated with Rajasthan University, once again becoming the first transgender person in the state to do so.

The Central Admission Committee of Rajasthan University has given her admission under the special case. Noor Shekhawat has taken admission in BA first year at Maharani College, University of Rajasthan. Along with studying in college, Noor has also expressed her desire to contest the student union elections.

Noor Shekhawat told a news channel that she had passed Class 12 in 2013. Shekhawat enrolled in a college at Rajasthan University to pursue a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) after completing her secondary schooling. The 30-year remembers that severe discrimination forced her to leave college.

She called that part of her life mental torture and after years, when she decided to give her education a chance again, the lack of a birth certificate with her real gender identity became a hindrance. Shekhawat claimed that her parents concealed her transgender identity from both her and the general public because there was no way to do so on the birth certificate, which is why her gender was listed as male.

Noor recently received Rajasthan’s first transgender birth certificate, which was given by Bhanwarlal Bairwa, Director of the Economic and Statistics Department and Chief Registrar (Births and Deaths). According to Bhairwa, the birth records of transgender people will now be accessible on the corporation’s portal alongside the records of men and females. She was granted admission to Maharani College with the aid of this recently obtained certificate.

In addition, Shekhawat is the first transgender person in Rajasthan to be granted a driver’s licence following a 2011 ruling by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA). She also runs an NGO of her own.