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When the Supreme Court recognised the right to self-identify one's gender in the 2014 National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) v Union of India judgement, it was celebrated as a watershed moment for transgender rights in India. But activists say a new amendment to the transgender persons law could reverse that progress — replacing self-identification with medical scrutiny and narrowing who the law recognises as transgender.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 13 by Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar, proposes significant changes to the existing 2019 Act. Community groups and legal experts argue that the amendment weakens the principle of gender self-determination affirmed in the Supreme Court ruling, erases trans men, non-binary people, and others who fall outside its newly narrowed categories, and places transgender people under unprecedented state and medical scrutiny. Opposition has come swiftly — from community organisations, legal advocates, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, and gender rights coalitions across the country — all demanding immediate withdrawal.
What the Bill actually says
The 2019 Act defined 'transgender person' broadly — encompassing trans men, trans women, persons with intersex variations, genderqueer individuals, and those with socio-cultural identities such as kinnar, hijra, aravani and jogta. Crucially, Section 4(2) guaranteed the right to self-perceived gender identity.
The 2026 Bill dismantles this in one sweep.
The new definition limits recognition to those with specific socio-cultural identities — kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta — or those with specified intersex variations. Trans men, trans women, and genderqueer are removed from the definition entirely. A proviso explicitly states the law “shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities.”
Further, section 4(2), the right to self-perceived gender identity, is deleted entirely.
For those without a socio-cultural identity, the only remaining route to recognition is to have already undergone a medical procedure — surgery and hormones. Further, activists also point out that the Bill's Statement of Objects and Reasons is unambiguous. The law's purpose is stated as: "was and is not to protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities," but only those facing exclusion "due to biological reasons for no fault of their own."
"From the beginning, they have always had some super-Brahmanical, patriarchal idea of who we are," says Grace Banu, a prominent trans activist from Tamil Nadu who has led the fight
for reservation rights. "In 2016, they said transgender means partially male, not partially female. Now they have come back with the same idea. We said we are transgender persons. Now they are telling us we are only hijra, aravani — and they haven't even used the right names. Why is 'aravani' listed, when that is like a dead name for the community? In Tamil Nadu, even official government records use Thirunangai [Tamil word for trans woman]. Why have they left out Thirunangai and Thirunambi [Tamil word for trans man] entirely?"
The answer, Grace Banu suggested, is ideological. "This is a complete Hindutva bill. It imposes their ideology on us without our consent. Hijra and Kinnar appear in their texts — so they get listed. Our identities do not fit their imagination, so we are erased."
'Where do we fit?': Erasing trans men, non-binary people, and the AFAB community
The redefinition's most immediate victims are trans men and anyone assigned female at birth (AFAB) who is gender-diverse. No socio-cultural identity exists for trans men anywhere in India, except in Manipur, where a cultural identity called Nupamanba exists, says Fred Rogers, a Chennai-based man of transgender experience. For the rest of the country, they simply do not exist in the Bill's imagination.
"So where do we fit? This Bill completely erases us," he says. "The 2019 Act explicitly included trans men, trans women, and genderqueer. This Bill removes all three."
Radzz (they/them), a queer trans masculine person working in the education sector, pointed to the additional trap embedded in the medicalisation of the definition. "It makes us fit into a binary to survive. It puts us under pressure to undergo treatments which may not have been a consideration — and many of these treatments have a toll on mental health." For trans men in particular, bottom surgery in India is high-risk and largely inaccessible. "There is nothing on paper for the transmasc spectrum. Nothing at all."
The Bill also has a retroactive sting. Its proviso — that persons with self-perceived identities “shall never have been so included” — puts existing identity cards at risk. Dr Gargi (they/them), a medical professional from the kothi community, flagged this. "Any identity card issued before this legislation comes into force could be taken away. People who got their ID cards through a court battle will have to fight again in court. We also stand a risk of losing what we already have."
Further, community members also argue that the framing of the amendment suggests that legal protection should apply mainly to those with “biological reasons beyond choice”, which they say risks delegitimising transgender identities based on self-determination.
Five stages to prove you exist: The new bureaucratic gauntlet
Under the 2019 Act, a trans person could obtain an identity certificate with a self-affidavit and Aadhaar card. Under the 2026 Bill, that process is replaced by what Kanamani Ray, a trans advocate and legal analyst, described as a five-stage ordeal: first, the applicant must have already undergone a medical procedure; then appear before a medical board; whose recommendation goes to the District Magistrate; who, if unsatisfied, may refer to additional undefined 'medical experts'; before the DM issues — or withholds — the certificate.
"Medical board. District Magistrate. Another medical expert if the DM is not satisfied. District Magistrate again. And on top of that, you first have to have undergone a medical procedure. That's five stages just to get a transgender certificate," says Kanmani. "The whole point was to put the power in the hands of the trans person. Now you are taking it away and distributing it across institutions that will all gatekeep."
The medical board itself is undefined — only described as being headed by a Chief Medical Officer. Ray noted the infrastructural impossibility: "Plastic surgeons are not available in every
district government hospital. Endocrinologists — how many serve in government hospitals across this country? The poor trans person on the street does not have money to even go to the district collector's office, let alone multiple institutions, multiple times."
Fred illustrated the human cost with a specific scenario: a transmasculine person not yet out to his family, unable to dress in accordance with his gender expression, could be denied a certificate by a psychiatrist on the basis of appearance alone. "Because of this, he may be denied healthcare and the constitutional protections of Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21. This Bill creates an additional burden on us to prove who we are to medical experts who do not understand us at all," Fred remarks.
Gargi, speaking from inside the medical profession, confirmed the bias: "No doctor will ever give a certificate to a Kothi person, especially because we are predominantly male-presenting. Based on appearance, they judge. If you don't pass their passing criteria, you will not get a certificate."
Layered on top of this is a new medical surveillance architecture. The amended Section 7 compels medical institutions to report the details of anyone who undergoes gender reassignment surgery directly to the District Magistrate. The earlier option to retain a transgender identity document after surgery is removed — everyone who transitions must now apply for a binary male or female marker. "My private medical details are going to be revealed to the district magistrate," says Kanmani. "They are setting up a surveillance mechanism that violates medical confidentiality and the right to privacy."
Criminalising care: The attack on chosen families
Section 18 introduces steeply elevated criminal penalties for what it frames as “forced transgender identity.” Kidnapping a child and causing bodily harm with intent to compel them to assume a transgender identity carries mandatory life imprisonment. Compelling any person to present as transgender and engage in begging or servitude carries five to ten years; for a child, ten to fourteen.
Community members broadly support stronger punishment for genuine trafficking. But the drafting, they warn, is broad enough to sweep in shelters, NGOs, doctors, and the gharana system — the centuries-old network of chosen family that has sustained gender-diverse people pushed out of their natal homes.
"The Bill claims to give rights to Hijra, Aravani, Kinnar and Jogta communities. On the other hand, it criminalises the very systems that support them," Fred says. "If a 14- or 15-year-old escapes family violence, goes to a person and asks for shelter, and they take them in, they can be punished with life imprisonment. You say you want to protect them, but you criminalise the protection they have."
Radzz invoked the celebrated case of Gauri Savant, the hijra activist who raised children and is also responsible for getting the NALSA verdict passed. "Someone like her, who has raised so many kids and empowered them, in today's times, can have a parent knock on her door and accuse her of forcibly castrating the child or feeding medicines. This resurrects very old stereotypes about transgender people kidnapping children and deprives trans folks from abusive natal homes, their chance of finding chosen families."
Kanmani added that the effect of this perception was already underway: "Trans community-based organisations (CBOs) and NGOs are already turning minors away because they fear false kidnapping cases. This law makes that dramatically worse. And existing laws — the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, the BNS — already cover forced exploitation. There is no data showing a gap that needs to be filled. The government has to reveal who asked for this, and on what evidence."
Subsumed and weaponised: The intersex community speaks
The Bill's treatment of intersex people has drawn a distinct and pointed critique, not simply that intersex people are placed under a transgender law, but that their existence is being weaponised to delegitimise transgender identity altogether.
Momo (chosen name), an intersex rights advocate with the Intersex Advocacy Consortium, was clear: "The Bill conflates sex characteristics — intersex variations — with gender identity and expression. These are distinct realities. Intersex people exist because of biological variations in sex traits. Transgender people have a gender identity that differs from their assigned gender. These are different things, and conflating them erases the specific violations intersex people face — around bodily autonomy, informed consent, and protection from non-consensual medical interventions."
The Bill's framing of protection as applying to those with 'biological reasons beyond choice' is already being used as a wedge. "This language uses intersex existence to delegitimise transgender identities. It pits communities against each other and that is already happening. Our advocacy page has been receiving troll messages and Twitter attacks claiming we are anti-intersex rights. The digital violence has already begun," says Momo. "Any anti-trans legislation is also anti-intersex legislation. Calling for solidarity should not come at the cost of erasing intersex people."
A law nobody asked for
Kanamani Ray stated the constitutional problem plainly: "After a Supreme Court judgement, can you bring a Bill that goes against it? They can — but it will be challenged in the High Court or the Supreme Court for violation of fundamental rights. The Supreme Court in NALSA affirmed that self-determination of gender identity is a fundamental right under Articles 14, 15, 16, 19, and 21. We will fight it in Parliament, and then in court."
The Samyuktha Samara Samithi Keralam called the Bill "a direct violation of the Supreme Court's NALSA judgment and contrary to the Yogyakarta Principles." The Karnataka State Gender and Sexuality Minorities Coalition for Convergence, signed by advocates including Akkai Padmashali, called it "a shocking attempt to take back the hard-won rights of the transgender community."
The CPI(M) Polit Bureau said the DM's new powers "border on vigilantism" and drew an explicit ideological line: "The BJP government, guided by the Hindutva worldview, has long sought to impose a rigid, Brahmanical concept of gender and social order. This Bill reflects the regressive Manuvadi outlook."
Ray asked the most basic question of all: "Nobody in the community has asked for this. The government has to reveal who did. Which NCRB data are they citing to say kidnapping related to transgender identity increased post 2019? There is no data. Nothing I have seen so far."
Grace Banu put it most simply. "A Bill, a policy — it should be for the people. Not to kill the people. They don't talk about education rights. They don't talk about employment rights. They don't talk about how to protect trans children. They are only focused on the definition. And even that definition, they got wrong."
Fred returned to the Bill's most fundamental failure: "This shows a very limited understanding of transgender and gender-diverse communities. If this is the level of understanding in a nodal ministry supposed to support marginalised people, imagine the reality for community members. They may have assumed that minority communities do not know better than them. This is a very common cis-heterosexual 'saviour' attitude. The social justice lens is completely lost. This is nothing but erasure."
“What this Bill does is say there is a ‘good’ way to be trans,” says writer Nadika, “You are either a state-approved, state-recognised hijra-type person, or you are not trans.”
Nadika argues that the Bill undermines the broader idea of a diverse transgender community. “Earlier, there were many differences within the community — class, caste, region — but there was still a sense that we were part of a broader community. Now the state is deciding which identities are acceptable.”
Nadika says the Bill also risks pushing the movement backwards at a time when transgender activists have been demanding greater access to education, employment and reservation.
“We don’t reconcile with something that drags us backwards,” Nadika says. “We fight it.”
As the Bill moves through Parliament, activists say they will continue pressing for its withdrawal, arguing that the principle of self-determination recognised by the Supreme Court more than a decade ago must not be reversed.