In a first, Hyderabad-based National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (Nalsar) University has exclusively designed a gender-neutral space in a bid to promote an inclusive student community. In a series of tweets, the university announced that one of the academic blocks in the campus will now house rooms and washrooms specially crafted for students identifying themselves with the LGBTQ+ community.

“Nalsar believes in inclusive education. I had involved students in my administration and their creative ideas have helped me in coming up with several progressive, liberal and futuristic policies. Persons belonging to the LGBTQ+ or gender and sexual minorities will have the same rights, privileges, and facilities as rest of the students,” Nalsar University Vice-Chancellor Faizan Mustafa said.

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The varsity also has plans to set up a gender-neutral hostel in due course. Several such initiatives are likely to come up soon as the university authorities are drafting a new policy that will address the concerns of LGBTQ+ community. This will include sensitizing its teaching and non-teaching staff and student body organizations about the discrimination faced by them.

This premier university’s efforts to incubate an inclusive campus began in 2015 when a BA LLB student who didn’t wish to be identified by any gender, was handed out a graduation certificate with the neutral prefix “Mx” instead of Mr or Ms.

Since then, the varsity has come up with an interim trans policy that underscores that the official records of students should no longer be labeled on the basis of gender or any other kind of prefixes. Instead, a self-attested letter would be the only document to categorize students based on their choices. Further, the policy also states that the self-declaration forms under no circumstances shall be shared with any third party, including parents, without the consent of students.

Moreover, no student can be forced to follow a gender-based dress code. The other policies include adequate representation of gender and sexual minorities across all departments. The committee drafting the trans policy has also suggested that the categories of male and female hostel representatives must be replaced with “residence representatives”, besides allotting a special student body representing the LGBQ+ community

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