The new amendments proposed to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019, which came out of nowhere on March 12, are like a knife twisting into the heart of the trans community.

The central claim for transgender rights has always been gender self-determination. The Supreme Court, in its seminal judgment in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (NALSA) in 2014, held that all persons have the fundamental right and autonomy to self-determine their gender identity as male, female, or transgender.

It held that one’s gender would not be decided on the basis of their biological attributes or any gender-affirming surgery but based on self-determination. It also guaranteed equality to trans persons and held that any discrimination on the basis of gender identity would amount to discrimination on the basis of sex. With this, India became one of the pioneering countries in the world to have recognised the right to gender identity.

The NALSA judgment was followed by the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019, which also recognised the right to self-determination of gender identity. Most importantly, the Act broadened the definition of transgender persons to mean: “A person whose gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at birth and includes transman or transwoman (whether or not such person has undergone sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy or laser therapy or such other therapy), person with intersex variations, genderqueer and person having such socio-cultural identities as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta.”

Recently, in 2025, the Supreme Court in the landmark Jane Kaushik case recognised that the Transgender Persons Act was not being implemented effectively, and set up an advisory committee to review its working and to recommend improvements.

While our constitutional courts have been recognising and expanding the rights of transgender persons, the recent Bill attempts to rip out the very soul of the law. The proposed definition of ‘transgender’ persons is restrictive, exclusionary and offensive in its use of stigmatising words like ‘eunuch’. It also removes an entire class that self-identifies as transgender persons, transmen, transwomen or gender queer, and replaces it with a narrow definition based solely on a medical or biological model.

The reasons for these amendments in the statement of objects and reasons state that “The legislative policy was and is intended to protect only those who face severe social exclusion due to biological reasons for no fault of their own and no choice of their own…The purpose was and is not to protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities…”

With this statement, the proposed Bill nullifies more than a decade of settled jurisprudence of the constitutional right to self-determination of one’s gender identity. From being stripped naked before doctors and welfare boards to confirm that they are indeed transgender so that they can claim measly pensions, the transgender community moved the courts to recognise their right to self-determine their gender identity. This was held by the Supreme Court to be one of the most intimate and personal choices that every person is entitled to.

When this is replaced by a law that seeks only to cover certain transgender persons from socio-cultural communities and excludes all others who identify themselves as trans or genderqueer, we are invisibilising an entire community and saying that they have no recognition under law.

It is only with the legal recognition of their gender identity that many civil rights would be available to trans persons such as the right to claim a legal identity through a passport or Aadhaar, the right to access food through a ration card, a driver’s license, the right to education and reservation in public employment. Our laws cannot begin with a focus on misuse and fraud on the part of the beneficiaries and must enable people of all genders to access their legal rights equally.

Over the last few years, around 30,000 persons have obtained transgender identity cards. What happens to them and their legally recognised gender identity? Can legal recognition once given be taken away? The heart of the law is the principle of self-determination of gender identity and the freedom to each person to be who they want to be and to be treated equally. This cannot be taken away by an amendment.

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