New Delhi: The bizarre so-called ‘scientific’ statements made by our ministers number in the hundreds, but a Kerala professor decided to join their hallowed company when he claimed that women who “wear jeans and shirts and dress like men, give birth to transgenders”.While speaking at an event, Rajith Kumar, a botany professor at Sree Sankara college in Kalady, also said that only those couples give birth to “good children” who “live their lives as men and women”.Not quite done, PTI reported, he added that children of parents who are not of good character turn out to be “autistic and suffer from cerebral palsy”.The state government said it is planning to initiate legal action against the professor and bar him from government-sponsored awareness classes in schools and colleges.“Kumar has not withdrawn his controversial statements so far. The government is mulling initiating legal action against him,” state health minister K.K. Shylaja said in a statement.“He has been propagating superstition and making anti-women remarks continuously,” she said.This isn’t the first time Kumar’s comments have launched a furore. While speaking at a women’s college in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram earlier, he reportedly made disparaging remarks against female students, leading to a few booing him and staging a walkout.In recent time, he isn’t the only professor from the state to have been slammed for their viewpoint on what women should and should’t do and wear.Last month, Jouhar Munavvir, another professor from Kerala was slammed for making misogynistic comments about female students. He was booked under Section 354, 509(a) of the Indian Penal Code.While speaking during a counselling session in a college, he had said:“I am the professor of Farook College where 80 per cent students are women, a majority among whom are Muslims. Think about it. The girls wear purdah but wear leggings inside. This is today’s style. They pull up the purdah, showing the leggings to the world. Don’t even talk about muftah. They don’t even wear the muftah. They wrap a shawl around with some 32 steps and 25 pins. That’s the style, revealing the chest. One of the body parts that man is highly attracted to is a woman’s bosom. That’s why it should be covered. But our girls reveal a part of their bosom. Like how we slice a melon open and see the ripe part inside. This style of wearing the muftah is not Islamic.”Kumar’s comments made their way into the news cycle just a day after Kerala announced that a justice board would be set up exclusively for the transgender community. This measure comes as a followup to the announcement of the State Policy of Transgenders in November last year which aims to help mould a a just society for the community with equal rights.These measures have likely been spurred by the increasing number of transphobic attacks in the state – of which there have reportedly been 10 since July 2017. In fact, in August, a 35-year-old transgender person Gowri was murdered in Ernakulam district in August, causing a great panic in the trans circles in the state.Many have also pointed fingers at the police for targeting them. One such example, they say, is the case where four trans women were arrested from a lodge in Kochi on January 4 as part of a prostitution ring.In fact, as trans activist Vihaan Peethambar told Scroll, “A majority in Kerala Police hate transgender people and it results in conflicts and cases.”Not just that, accommodation is incredibly difficult to find. According to a Hindustan Times report, eight of the 23 transgender people employed by the Kochi Metro quit their jobs within a week of joining after they failed to find cheap and safe accommodation in the city.Note: In an earlier version of this story, the Sree Sankara college in Kalady was wrongly identified as the ‘Sree Sankara Sanskrit University’.
