The Lok Sabha passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2018, on December 17. The Bill, which claims to protect the rights of transpeople in the country, has been met with horror and anger by that very community and for good reasons. This is based on how widely it deviates from the rights guaranteed by the Supreme Court’s landmark NALSA verdict in 2014.
The judgment, which had its own problems, gave the right of self-identification of gender. This means that a person may self-identify as male, female or transgender regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth. The judgment also provided reservation for transpersons in education and employment. These key aspects of the NALSA verdict are missing in the Bill.
Worse, the Bill appears to create a tiered system of gender identity. According to the Bill, a pre-operative person must be screened by a district-level committee which will provide a certificate identifying the person as transgender. After sex reassignment surgery, the person can apply to have their ‘new’ gender recorded. This flies at the face of the right of self-identification. In creating a tiered system it also furthers the misguided notion that surgery is essential to establish gender identity.
The Bill also appears to conflate intersex and trans identities without realising that while the needs of both communities may overlap, they are also distinct. It also says that if a transperson cannot be cared for by their own family, a competent court may send them to a rehab home, which is an assault on an adult’s rights. Shockingly, the Bill’s penal provisions for physical violence against transpersons are less severe than the provisions for similar crimes against cispersons.
The government should withdraw this Bill and take seriously the representations made by the transcommunity to the Standing Committee and the Centre. If this Bill becomes a law, it will only institutionalise the already entrenched discrimination against, and oppression of, a community.