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India Supreme Court to build nine gender-neutral restrooms – JURIST

The Supreme Court of India Wednesday released a statement in pursuance of its aims on inclusive infrastructure and “sexuality sensitization” on its creation of nine universal restrooms in the main building and additional buildings of the court. This development follows the letter nonbinary lawyer Rohin Bhatt wrote to the Chief Justice of India Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, requesting a range of measures to make legal logistics more gender inclusive, such as adding an extra pronoun column to the advocates’ appearance slips, with the aim of using more queer-friendly language in legal writing and judgements.The court said that they implemented the same under the guidance and direction of Chandrachud in efforts to be more inclusive of LGBTQIA+ individuals. As a result, the restrooms intended for the LGBTQ community will be built in different locations along with other inclusive measures such as making the newly-launched Online Attendance Portal gender-neutral. Additionally, Senior Advocate Dr. Menaka Guruswamy has been inducted as a member of the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaints Committee (GSICC) to oversee the implementation of all these measures. The court added: “A proposal for broadening of the scope of the Gender Sensitization and Internal Complaints Committee to Gender and Sexuality Sensitization and Internal Complaints Committee, as requested by an advocate from the community, is also under active consideration.”Last month, the court ordered a special constitutional panel of five judges to consider a series of petitions related to same-sex marriage.