India's third gender gets own identity in voter rolls

[ccharles000]

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country's voter lists.

Before, members of these groups -- loosely called eunuchs in Indian English -- were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls.

But now, they will have the choice to tick "O" -- for others -- when indicating their gender in voter forms, the Indian election commission said in a statement.

"Enumerators and booth-level officers (BLOs) shall be instructed to indicate the sex of eunuchs/transsexuals etc as 'O' if they so desire, while undertaking any house-to-house enumeration/verification of any application," a statement from election authorities said.

India, home to more than 1 billion people, has 714 million registered voters.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/12/india.gender.voting/index.html

[TheDebbieDee]

1. 714 million registered voters.........

That number blows my mind!

[blogslut]

2. The Hijra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)