Why amendment to law for protection of transgender rights has the community worried

“After years of struggling to live an authentic life, I was forced to flee my home after I learnt that they were planning to marry me off to a cis man [a person whose gender identity is aligned to the sex assigned at birth]. They also told me that they would not pay for my higher education if I continued to dress in a ‘masculine’ way,” says Dogra, who identifies as non-binary and transgender.

In early 2019, with the help of some online friends and the support of a government organisation, Dogra ran away from home in Rajasthan and took refuge in a shelter home in Kerala.

The timing was not incidental. That very year, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, had come into force, recognising the right to self-identify one’s gender. For Dogra, this was not just a legal shift. With the support of the Act, along with welfare schemes run by the Kerala government, they were able to secure documentation that reflected their identity.

Seven years later, that alignment is under threat.

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, which was introduced in Parliament earlier this month and passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday (March 24), moves away from self-identification. It narrows legal recognition to specific socio-cultural identities such as Hijra, Kinnar, Aravani or Jogti. Activists warn that this could exclude a large number of trans men, trans women and non-binary persons from legal recognition.

According to reports, during debates on the bill, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar has said that amendment ensures that “only those who face social boycott due to biological issues” are protected under law.

The bill had been allegedly introduced in Parliament without consulting the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP), and since its introduction, the minister is claimed to have skipped a meeting with its members.

“I see it as a serious lack of engagement from the ministry that did not consult us. We are representatives from across the country, including members and experts from the transgender community. Before introducing such an important amendment bill, they should have informed us and taken our opinion,” says NCTP member Kalki Subramaniam, a trans woman representing the Southern region.

She adds: “This is completely unacceptable. When we were called for an urgent meeting, the minister did not turn up. The way the senior economic advisor answered us showed a complete lack of understanding of trans issues.”

For Dogra, these shifts reach directly into a life that has only recently begun to stabilise.

In Kerala, Dogra had found more than institutional recognition. After losing touch with their biological family, they had built another one. A hijra whom Dogra met and connected with at the shelter is now their “mother”, with whom they live in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. After years of binding their chest and navigating dysphoria, Dogra was finally looking ahead to top surgery.

“My mother had applied for a medical loan so I could get that surgery. Now, I don’t know whether I will be able to get it, because I’m Trans and non-binary, and I don’t fit into the definition of transgender that this government has decided on. It has taken me years to find and accept myself. This government is trying to put us into boxes, but why should we go back into boxes that we fought so hard to get out of?” they ask.

Supreme Court advocate Avani Bansal frames it in similar terms. “What it [the amendment] does is move from a spectrum to boxes. It shows a lack of basic understanding of the difference between transgender and intersex. The definition also completely ignores the distinction between sex and gender,” she says.

The shift is significant when placed against the trajectory of the last decade.

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In 2014, the Supreme Court’s National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) vs Union of India judgment recognised gender identity as innate and affirmed the right to self-identify as a fundamental right. For some, it was the first time the law spoke their language.

Shaman Gupta, a Trans man and activist based in Dehradun, was working as a software engineer in a company when he read about the NALSA judgment in a Facebook post.

“I wasn’t connected with the community till then. I remember the SC had said that gender identity was innate to a person, and I took such a sigh of relief. I thought I could finally tell the world about myself. That helped me to socially transition. In my next job, I worked in a non-profit. My manager, who had returned from the US, encouraged me to use my identity as a man. It’s after that that I came out to my family,” he recalls.

He used the NALSA judgment to get all the legal documents even before the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act came into effect, which, for many others, became the turning point.

Lillian Hope, a trans woman based in Hyderabad who works for an MNC, says, in some regard, she was able to come out because of the 2019 Act.

“Earlier, the NALSA judgment was there, but it did not reflect in the bureaucracy as such. If we went to the district magistrate and asked for a Transgender ID Card, there was no way to get it… That changed with the 2019 Act. It also gave hope to young trans people like me,” she says.

Sofie K, a trans woman copywriter based in Gurgaon, elaborates on how that shift played out in everyday life.

“Self-identification helped me in places like the metro, where I can identify as a woman. I’m pretty sure it’s because of the NALSA judgment and the 2019 Act, and the work that has been done by the community. Transitioning and coming out to the world has been easier for me, because of those things,” she says.

But now there’s a cloud looming over it all.

For Gupta, trans men have long existed at the edges of visibility, with fewer support systems and less recognition. A narrower legal definition risks pushing them further out.

The bill also expands penalties for several offences and introduces prison terms of up to five years for “alluring” or “forcing” someone to become transgender. Activists say the language is vague and risks criminalising transgender persons, their families or allies while reinforcing harmful stereotypes about the community.

In 2022, Gupta says he and a colleague were picked up and beaten by a police officer who accused them of kidnapping an adult trans man, despite written consent stating otherwise and even though he was working for a shelter home working in collaboration with the government.

Now, he wonders whether such actions will gain legitimacy.

Gupta says the fear is so much that he “doesn’t even know whether doctors will perform [gender affirmation] surgeries now or not.”

Healthcare is a sphere of sharpened uncertainty.

“95.5 per cent of doctors and healthcare providers in India in 2026 have been trained in a binary fashion. They do not have an understanding of gender incongruence or the separation between gender and sex… It is pushing healthcare into a space where anyone outside male or female identities is effectively denied care. If a person has a self-affirmed gender identity, they may not be considered eligible for treatment. That takes us backwards to a very regressive framework,” says Dr Sanjay Sharma, CEO of the Association for Transgender Health in India (ATHI).

He adds: “A government doctor is not going to go against the government, so accessible and affordable care will vanish. This is going to push people into the hands of unregulated private practitioners. These are often untrained providers who operate without oversight. The cost of care will increase, and the risk of harm will be much higher,” he adds.

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The bill also raises a more fundamental question about authority over identity. According to reports, the Bill mandates transition surgeries for all those identified as transgender, and involves the intervention of a medical board and the district magistrate.

But community members say the government cannot dictate surgeries.

“There are certain surgeries I want to go through and certain surgeries I don’t. And I don’t want the government dictating what surgeries I need to be considered a trans person,” says Hope.

Sofie adds that “dysphoria is unique to trans people, but it is not the only indicator of transness”.

According to Dr Sharma, the Bill creates an impossible situation for doctors.

“If I provide ethical care, I am liable to punishment under the law. If I follow the government’s definition, I risk being taken to court for not providing standard care. So the doctor is put in an impossible situation,” he says.

Even without these changes, accessing care has never been simple. Aanchal Narang, a queer therapist based in Mumbai, says there were already enough procedures in place before somebody physically transitioned.

“You had to go to a psychiatrist, get tests done, then go to an endocrinologist before starting hormone therapy. So it actually makes no sense to make the rules more complicated,” they say.

“After the NALSA judgment and the 2019 Act, people were able to self-identify. Clients did go through surgeries and change their documents, and things had loosened up a bit. Everything that NALSA enabled, this bill will revoke,” they add.

The uncertainty is already translating into anxiety and fear, even for those who have documentation.

“I have been working on getting all my documentation sorted for the past five years, and it’s been a torturous process even with the existence of NALSA and the 2019 Act. Getting the transgender certificate was a two-year-long process for me because I couldn’t find a lawyer to draft the affidavit, because no one could understand what I was trying to say,” says Sofie.

“This is the ecosystem we are living in... And for the past one week, I have been left to wonder if all of it will be taken away. My documentation is based on the basic right of self-determination. If that goes away, do I become undocumented?” she wonders.

According to Bansal, that concern has legal grounding.

“There is a retrospective clause in the bill. What that means is that now this is the latest law, and anything or any rights given to you by anything done previously does not matter. It basically means that all the 37,000 people who may have applied and who may have got an ID, may be subjected or can be subjected to this medical procedure again… Earlier, they had got their IDs because of self-attestation. Now, they all can be asked to come before the board, and the board can say whatever happened previously doesn't matter…” she says.

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Beyond law and policy, the impact is being felt in mental health. The fear is so much that some within the community are purportedly exhibiting suicidal tendencies.

“From a mental health perspective, this is creating a lot of fear and terror. It gives systems the power to change people’s identities. What about those who are mid-transition? People are wondering whether they should leave the country, and whether they'll be accepted here. What is going to happen to their documents? How are they going to continue their medication? Many of my clients have actually become very triggered and very suicidal,” says Narang.

They’re in a pickle because, according to them, “the system is the problem, not the person”. “Their thoughts are not the issue; the environment is against them, so what can they do? It becomes a deeply hopeless situation; in other circumstances, you can talk about hope and control, but here the situation itself takes that away,” they say.

For Hope, the bill has meant withdrawing her application for a transgender ID card for fear of surveillance “and worse”.

“I had applied for the transgender ID card in August last year, but it has not been ready till now. So once the Bill was tabled, I didn’t want the government to have my data, so I withdrew my application… I’m worried about a crackdown. If a person is criminalised for influencing people, won’t transgender people be the first to be targeted? I wanted to change my name for a long time, but I waited till I became independent enough. I thought I had time, but I was wrong,” she says.

She had landed on the surname Hope after trying a few chosen names. It was something she felt at that time. Now, asked if she still feels hope, she says, “very little, very minimal, but yes”.

That small measure of hope rests on the resistance that is beginning to grow. Opposition to the bill is building within the community, alongside support from outside it. Several MPs, including Congress’s Renuka Choudhary, RJD’s Manoj Jha and CPI(M)’s John Brittas, have come out publicly against it. On Friday, Congress MP and leader of opposition in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi, took to social media platform X to write, “The BJP government’s Transgender Persons Amendment Bill is a brazen attack on the Constitutional rights and identity of transgender people. This regressive bill: strips transgender people of their ability to self identify, violating a Supreme Court judgement; ⁠wipes out the diverse cultural identities of communities across India; ⁠forces trans people to undergo dehumanizing examinations by a medical board; [and] ⁠introduces criminal penalties and surveillance without safeguards”.

He added: “The BJP government hasn’t consulted the trans community and brought a bill which stigmatises rather than protects them. The Constitution protects every Indian’s right to life, liberty, identity, and dignity. This BJP government is violating our Constitution and destroying India’s rich history of honouring transgender communities in pursuit of its narrow ideas. The Congress Party unequivocally opposes this Bill.”

Reacting to the passing of the bill in Lok Sabha, Aqsa Shaikh, a transgender doctor, posted on social media: “Injustice has been done. This is inhuman. The arrogance, the urgency, and the stubbornness of the government to pass this anti transgender people bill is shameful. This is not the end. We will fight it to the end.”

For some, that opposition is also a line they are prepared to hold institutionally. Subramaniam says she is clear that if the bill is passed in both Houses of Parliament in its present form, she will resign. “I will also challenge it in the Supreme Court. That is my position,” she says.

If it does reach the Court, there is a belief that it may not withstand scrutiny. As Bansal puts it, “This bill does not stand much chance legally because it tries to change the entire framework. There is no clear basis or demand for it.”