NEW DELHI: The government on Friday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha proposing significant amendments to the 2019 Act on transgender rights, including changes to the legal definition of a transgender person and stricter criminal punishment for offences involving forced alteration of gender identity.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill was introduced by Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar. As per the new definition, persons with socio-cultural identities as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta, or eunuch, or a person with intersex variations or a person who, at birth, has a congenital variation in one or more sex characteristics as compared to male or female development will be defined as a transgender.
Additionally, the proposed amendment says that any person or child 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, by mutilation, emasculation, castration, amputation, or any surgical, chemical, or hormonal procedure or otherwise will be included in the definition.
While the 2019 Act recognizes the right to self-perceived gender identity, allowing individuals to identify as male, female, or transgender, the proposed bill removes it. Besides, “Only those transgender persons who face “severe social exclusion due to biological reasons” will be recognised and not “each and every class of persons with various gender identities or self perceived gender identities.”
The draft retains the maximum of two years jail for offences against transgenders.
Right to change first name in birth certificate
The draft law seeks to empower transgender persons to make consequential changes in official documents. Any person who has been issued a certificate of identity and is declared a transgender, will be entitled to change the first name in the birth certificate and all other official documents relating to their identity, it says.