Erasure, not inclusion: Why activists are opposing amendments to Transgender Act
India Today
As Parliament prepares to bring amendments to the Transgender Act, activists warn the proposed changes risk rolling back years of hard-won rights.
As Parliament prepares to take up the proposed amendments to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, transgender rights activists have sounded a strong warning, arguing that the changes could roll back key protections by undermining self-identification and narrowing the legal definition of transgender persons, effectively erasing large sections of the community.
The activists, along with Members of Parliament from several Opposition parties, held a public meeting on Sunday to protest the amendments, which are scheduled for consideration and passage in Parliament on Monday.
At the heart of the opposition is the proposed shift towards requiring “medical proof” of gender identity, effectively undermining the principle of self-identification. Activists say this marks a departure from the 2019 law, which defined a transgender person as someone whose gender does not match the one assigned at birth and recognised a broad spectrum of identities.
The amendments seek to remove this inclusive definition and replace it with a restricted list of categories, excluding many individuals who were previously covered.
The Bill also states that it "shall not include or shall never have included" persons with diverse sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities -- an approach activists say conflates gender identity with sexual orientation, despite the Supreme Court’s 2014 NALSA (National Legal Services Authority) judgment clearly distinguishing between the two. People from the LGBTQ+ community take part in a rally over Transgender (Amendment) Bill in Kolkata on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)
Speaking to India Today, lawyer and activist Raghavi, who is herself a trans woman, said the amendments ignore ground realities, pointing out that not all trans persons have the financial means to undergo surgery to align with their identified gender.
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