Despite steady progress in educational reforms, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 acknowledges the persistent disparity in bridging the gender gap. It emphasises the necessity for gender sensitisation towards women and transgender individuals as a critical skill for both students and teachers. In this context, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) published a manual, Inclusion of Transgender Children in School Education: Concerns and Roadmap (2021). It provided a legal, historical overview and the categorisation of the transgender identity within the present scenario. However, the removal of this text and the redrafting of a new manual a year later highlight the need to train teachers to enable a gender-sensitive school environment. This article attempts to understand the reconceptualisation of the word ‘manual’ by highlighting the inclusion of testimonials from the transgender community. Furthermore, the researchers aim to analyse how the inclusion of regional and English terminology challenges the binary understanding of gender for teachers. A textual analysis is conducted to examine the need for and concerns raised in the book. Additionally, the article also studies the ‘backlash’ it received, which forced the retraction of the book. Through this exploration, the article seeks to contribute to the ongoing discourse on gender inclusivity in education, advocating for systemic changes that support transgender students.
Sharma et al. (Mon,) studied this question.