An Indian Navy sailor from Visakhapatnam, who was discharged from service for having a sex change surgery, said on Monday she would move court against the decision, the Hindustan Times reported. Manish Giri, who now goes by the name Sabi, was sacked by the Navy on Monday for “breaching recruitment regulations and eligibility criteria”.
“How can they discharge me because I underwent a sex change?” Sabi was quoted as asking. “I remain the same old person with the same potential and efficiency. I can perform my duties as efficiently as any male sailor. How can they say that I am not fit to do a sailor’s job?”
She added that she was in touch with her lawyers and planned on moving the court. In an interview to India Today, she said it was “sad and worrying that a man the Indian Navy deemed fit for the job of being a sailor has suddenly been declared unfit because of an organ change”.
In a press release, the Navy had said: “The individual chose to undergo irreversible gender re-assignment on his own accord, wilfully altering his gender status from the one he was recruited for at the time of his induction.”
Sabi had gone on leave last year for the surgery. When she came back, she was sent to a naval hospital for psychiatric treatment, she alleged. She was sacked when the doctors could not prove she was mentally ill, she told the Hindustan Times.
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