Take up my case, transwoman who sought mercy killing urges CM

Days after writing to President Ram Nath Kovind seeking mercy killing after being denied a job in Air India, a transwoman today petitioned Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami to take up her case with the Centre.
"I request the Chief Minister to urge the Centre to grant me and the larger transgender community our rights," Shanavi Ponnuswamy said in a petition.
She said such "basic rights" included those relating to right to education and employment opportunities.
The Tamil Nadu government should take up this matter with the Centre the way it used to fight for farmers' issues, she said in her petition submitted to the Chief Minister's Special Cell at the Secretariat here.

Referring to a petition she filed in the Supreme Court last November challenging Air India denying her a job as a cabin crew member, she said she "does not have the wherewithal" to continue to fight her case.
It was under these circumstances that she had written to the President recently, seeking mercy killing, she said.

In her letter to the President, Ponnuswamy claimed that neither Air India nor the Civil Aviation Ministry responded to the Supreme Court's notice on her petition.
In the absence of a job she could not make ends meet and therefore had requested mercy killing, she had said.

In her letter, she claimed that she has been denied her basic rights because of her gender.
According to Ponnuswamy, before a surgery for gender change, she had been employed with Air India as a customer support executive for a year.
After that she applied four times over two years but while she got a "call letter" for the post of female cabin crew, she was never offered the job.