Dhaka, June 25 (EFE).- Authorities in Bangladesh have decided to remove the story of a transgender woman from a Class 7 school textbook, a senior government official said on Tuesday, after objections from Islamist groups.

Mohammad Moshiuzzaman, the acting chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, told EFE that they decided to replace the story with other content based on a recommendation from the education ministry.

“Since a few objections have come, it has been decided to drop the story,” said Moshiuzzaman.

“But we have not deviated from our objectives of teaching the matter to students. We will now seek opinions from experts about how we can replace it,” he said.

The story, titled Shorifar Golpo, unfolds the journey of a transgender woman, originally born male, who faces discrimination within her family and society due to her feminine identity. She finds peace after joining a transgender community, embracing her true self, and culminating in a name change that aligns with her self-discovered identity.

The story sparked controversy in Muslim-majority Bangladesh after a teacher at a private university protested it.

A video circulated on social media showed BRAC University philosophy teacher Asif Mahtab tearing apart two pages of the textbook that included the story in January. The university refused to renew its contract with Mahtab as adjunct faculty, sparking further protests.

The education ministry later formed a committee to review the story of “Shorifar Golpo.” NCTB chairman Moshiuzzaman said they recently received a letter from the committee recommending the story’s withdrawal.

According to the latest population census, Bangladesh has 12,629 transgender people who are locally known as Hijra. Bangladesh officially recognized transgender people as the third gender in 2014. In 2020, it granted them the right to vote in a separate category.

In 2021, Bangladesh declared a tax rebate for companies hiring transgender people if 10 percent of their total workforce or more than 100 workers are from this marginalized group in the Muslim-majority country. EFE

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