HYDERABAD — In a triage room at ESIC Hospital, Sanathnagar, a 31-year-old doctor flips through patient records. Outside, a queue waits. It is a normal morning. Her journey to get there was anything but.
Dr Koyyala Ruth John Paul has just cleared her MD in Emergency Medicine — among the first Dalit trans women in India to do so. Results came October 9. For her, it ends an eight-year battle that began when she came out.
Read more - Stage is Set in Switzerland After 22 Years
She is the youngest of three siblings from Khammam, Telangana. Her father died of cardiac arrest in 2006. Her mother, a daily wage labourer, raised them. Ruth did well in Class 10 and 12, cleared NEET, and enrolled for MBBS at Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad under her assigned gender at birth.
In third year, she came out as a trans woman. She says she was beaten and forced to leave home. No family support for six years. Days without food. Fifteen hospitals in Hyderabad turned her away after MBBS in 2019, she said. She found refuge in Hyderabad's trans community — activists Rachana Mudraboyina and Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli — and part-time work at Mitr Clinic, India's first transgender clinic, now Sabrang Clinic.
In 2022, she and Dr Prachi Rathore became the first trans doctors to get government jobs in Telangana as medical officers at Osmania General Hospital's ART centre.
Then came the next wall: PG admission. She cleared NEET-PG three times between 2021 and 2023. She argued she has constitutional right to reservation under both SC and transgender categories, as a Dalit trans woman. NMC replied there was no precedent. KNRUHS, the Telangana admission authority, said her MBBS certificates with male name mismatched her transgender ID issued by the state, and put her under female category. At national level, she was once listed as “both male and female.”
She moved Telangana High Court in 2021 seeking recognition as third gender with SC status. In July 2023, Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan's bench passed interim order allowing admission under third gender plus SC benefit. She got MD Emergency Medicine at ESIC Medical College, Hyderabad. She had wanted OB-GYN to serve trans and women patients, but got Emergency Medicine. Fee was Rs 2.5 lakh a year — OGH staff crowdfunded Rs 1 lakh, Helping Hand Foundation paid Rs 1.5 lakh.
Read more - One Elephant, A Million Dogs
On October 10, 2026, she cleared all papers of 2023-26 batch, becoming the first trans person in India to complete a PG medical course.
Her older brother's name, John Paul, is now her chosen surname. Her inspiration, she says, is Dr B R Ambedkar — dignity, education, fight against caste discrimination. She wants to work in a government hospital, serve underserved trans patients, and finish the legal fight that is still pending — to be officially recognized as a transgender woman doctor, not as a woman, not as both.
*Tags:* #DrRuthJohnPaul #TransDoctor #DalitTrans #ESICHyderabad #EmergencyMedicine #Telangana #NEETPG #NALSA #Ambedkar #TransRights