On the eve of International Trans Day of Visibility, March 30th 2026, the Indian Government formally Gazetted the amendments to the THE TRANSGENDER PERSONS (PROTECTION OF RIGHTS) ACT.
The Indian transgender community has for ages been fighting for its rights. Since the British Raj, trans people have been labelled as criminals and condemned into poverty, homelessness, begging, and forced sex work. Only as recently as 2014 did the Supreme Court of India, with the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) vs. the Union of India judgement, recognise transgender people as a separate third gender. In 2019, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act adopted a broader and more inclusive recognition of trans people—explicitly including trans men, trans women (irrespective of medical transition), and genderqueer persons—by self identification. It upheld the “right to dignity,” a core value of the Indian constitution. But seven years later, the ruling nationalist government suddenly decided that they weren’t ‘protecting trans people enough.’ So they took it all away in under two weeks.
On March 13, 2026, Union Minister Virendra Kumar introduced the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill 2026 in the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian Parliament). Less than two weeks later, the bill cleared both houses of Parliament, despite drawing widespread criticism, and without consulting statutory bodies like the National Council for Transgender Persons. The Parliament passed it by voice vote because they didn’t even have the nerve to put it to a proper count—why would they when the entire opposition spoke against this draconian bill? Multiple members and activists resigned from their positions from the Council in retaliation. President Droupadi Murmu assented to the bill, thereby completing the rollback one day before the International Transgender Day of Visibility. THE NERVE !
So what exactly got passed? The official Gazette of India, No. 3 of 2026: The 2019 Act defined a transgender person as someone “whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth, a broad, self-determined definition”. This amendment guts it. The new definition of “transgender person” under the amended clause (k) lists only:
Persons with socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani, jogta, or eunuchs; persons with specific intersex variations or congenital differences in primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomal patterns, gonadal development, or hormonal response;
Any person who has been “by force, allurement, inducement, deceit or undue influence, either with or without consent, compelled to assume, adopt, or outwardly present a transgender identity.”
It shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities.
While the new definition includes intersex people who underwent forced genital mutilation as children, the government clearly rejects all self-identification, confusing sexual with gender identity, intersex people with transgender. This bill strips away the dignity of transgender individuals, characterising the individuals of the community either as (1) members of a religious caste and biological deviants, (2) unfortunate, and underprivileged by nature of being transgender, or (3) condemned sexual criminals.
This separation of traditional communities from non-conforming criminals explains the broader character of the ruling government. In order to avail the government’s ‘protection’ under the new amendment, we trans people have to undergo pain, insult, exploitation, and dehumanization only to prove to the state that we fit their traditional and orthodox boxes. That we’re the ‘correct kind of transgender,’ that we’re pure and sanctioned, sanctioned by the casteist, misogynist, and transphobic traditions of orthodoxy. This is the expression of the growing Elite-Hindu Nationalism, which ties itself to all the identities that stand by, support, and bow down to the religious and cultural elite. The ‘Protection of Rights’ amendment is only for those trans people that choose to uphold traditions of deep-rooted misogyny, casteism, and cultural hegemony. As for the rest, it is an excuse for erasure. Using these identities as tokens, the government is illegalising everyone who chooses their reality. The state is after everyone who speaks their own voice.
And they will check and ensure that we are the ‘correct kind’ themselves. Under the amended Section 6, a transgender identity card can now only be issued by the District Magistrate “after examining the recommendation of the authority and, if he considers either necessary or desirable, after taking the assistance of other medical experts.” Your surgery (if you get one), your hormones, your hairstyle – all of this, reported to and authorised by the government. Your body, logged in an official registry. This is not protection. This is surveillance. This is the government trying to invade our bodies. Imagine having to take off your clothes and presenting yourself in front of socially unconscious government-appointed doctors. They will judge you, sneer at you, perform all the ‘necessary examining’ that they want to, and then approve whether you are ‘considered’ transgender or not.
Describing their personal experience, VJ writes:
Let me be very clear about what this gazette means. I, a non-Hindu, disabled, queer, non-binary trans person, have been written out of existence. In the eyes of the Indian government, I do not exist. My identity has been legislated away. I am a trans-masculine student who, until now, hadn’t had to worry about what was in my fucking pants. Yes, there had been instances where I’d been stopped outside public bathrooms, looked up and down, told I was in the wrong place based on how I looked. But if I said “I am trans,” “I am a woman,” or “I am a boy,” no one could legally stop me. That liberty existed. That small, hard-won protection was real. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to breathe. I fought tooth and nail to pursue my Bachelor’s thesis on Architecture of Queer spaces, facing humiliation through every jury, in rooms where even my existence was up for debate. If educators couldn’t find it in themselves to respect my identity even when the law was on my side, what chance do any of us have now that it isn’t? What happens to my research, to all of us who built our lives and work on the legal foundation that we existed as dignified citizens, only for the government to write, formally, that we never did?
What is unfolding on the ground right now is exactly what those of us reading the text of the law feared. The amendment’s new criminal provisions are the sharpest weapon. Section 18 of the amended Act now criminalises anyone who “compels any person to dress, present, or conduct themselves outwardly as a transgender person” with sentences ranging from five to ten years, and up to fourteen years if a child is involved. That vagueness is intentional. It essentially legalises the narrative that chosen families, support organizations, doctors, and allies are converting people into being transgender. This bill is made to criminalise our support systems. The law has been written to be weaponised, and it is already being used that way.
At this moment, all the people who ever dared to support trans people are being hunted down as criminals. Universities are being summoned for allowing students to express their gender identity. Nonbinary people are summoned to court, because their conservative families don’t consider them mentally capable of living as respected citizens—as adults. Trans children are pushed back into the abusive birth families that they ran away from. And thus begins the witch hunt for anyone that dared to help, support, or nurture a queer person.
Right now India’s trans community needs international solidarity. We don’t need pity, we need strength. Donate to Indian fundraisers, to individuals who can’t afford surgery but will have to go through with it to prove they are trans. Help them access gender affirming care, find community, and leave transphobic homes. Amplify Indian trans voices, their organising, their demands, their protests. VJ’s organizations Queering in Chandigarh and Panjab Feminist Union of Students are sharing fundraisers for the community to access gender health care. Activists Grace Banu, Kanmani Ray, and Akkai Padmashali are fighting this draconian bill on the ground. We need solidarity. Noise. Pressure. Strength. Rebellion. Because, as Akkai Padmashali said plainly: “These politicians are making laws for us when they don’t even have basic concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality. This new bill criminalises us and disrespects our right to exist.”
NALSA Section 1 opened with this: “Moral failure lies in the society’s unwillingness to contain or embrace different gender identities and expressions, a mindset which we have to change.”
The Indian government has chosen democratic and moral failure. Documented and Signed on the 30th of March as The official Gazette of India, No. 3 of 2026. Reject and repeal the Trans Amendment Bill. Trans rights are under attack! What do we do? Stand up, fight back!
By Vridhi Jain and S Afroza
Courtesy : Honi Soit
Note: This news is originally published on https:/honisoit.com/bha and is used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, especially human rights