Transgender rights Bill: Minister ‘skips’ key meeting with NCTP members

Union Minister skips crucial NCTP meeting amid backlash over controversial Transgender Rights Bill, raising concerns within the community.

The Union government on Saturday called a meeting with members of the National Council of Transgender Persons (NCTP) amid the backlash over the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill that removes the right to a self-perceived gender identity.

The members were told that the meeting was to be held with Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar but the Minister is learnt to have skipped it. Subsequently, officials of the Ministry defended the Bill, citing “non-genuine transgender persons” as one of the reasons for limiting the definition in the proposed legislation.

The meeting was called after NCTP members said that they were not consulted before the Bill was introduced.

Community representative members of the NCTP said they were disappointed that the Minister did not attend the meeting, even though “they flew down from across the country”, including States such as Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh.

Discussions during the meeting indicated that the Ministry remains firm on revisiting the principle of self-perceived gender identity, expressing concerns that it could be misused, and that they had “received delegations” about such concerns. “The Minister is a very nice and compassionate person, however, it appears that the officials advising him on and drafting policies for trans people have no understanding of who a transgender person is,” said southern regional Representative of NCTP, Kalki Subramaniam.

Referring to their issues with the Bill, particularly the narrower definition, member and expert Abhina Aher, said, “We explained to them that if the definition is made narrow, people would be forced into begging, and joining communities that are mentioned [in the proposed definition]. We asked them to include transmen, transmasculine and transfeminine individuals in the definition.” Officials appeared to favour narrowing recognised identities to a limited set of traditional categories, they said.