‘We will be fighting’: Indian transgender activist says as new bill strips right to self-identify

Seven years after India adopted legislation to protect transgender people, it has passed new amendments to scale back those rights.

A new bill, passed in India’s parliament on Thursday, strips people of the ability to self-identify as transgender, and puts new restrictions on who can receive gender-affirming surgery.

It also makes it a crime, punishable by up to life in prison, to “force a person to assume a transgender identity.”

The government says the amendments are meant to protect people from human trafficking and abuse, while ensuring transgender protections are reserved only for “those who are in actual need of such protection.”

But 2SLGBTQ+ advocates and human rights organizations say it strips transgender people of their autonomy, creates unnecessary obstacles to accessing support, and puts them at risk of harm. 

“For me, it would change a lot of things,” Sylvie Merchant, CEO and founder of the 2SLGBTQ+ organization Lakshya Trust, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “My autonomy and agency will be taken away from me — and also for a lot of other people like me.”

Who decides who is trans?

The bill was put forth by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s majority government, and passed despite pushback from opposition lawmakers, who called for further consultations, and protests by trans people and their allies.

It amends the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act to remove a definition of transgender that was “irrespective” of whether someone had received gender-affirming medical care. 

Under the new rules, only people who receive gender-affirming surgery are eligible to change their gender on government identification. But such surgery will only be granted with the approval of a district medical board.

“I have to prove myself; it is not me who would decide,” Merchant said. “They will decide who I am, which is very, very unfortunate.”

The bill leaves in place protections for intersexed people, who are born with both male and female sex characteristics, as well as members of kinner, hijra, aravani, or jogta, terms for traditional gender-nonconforming, or “third-gender,” communities with deep roots in South Asian culture.

Rights groups decry bill; government defends it

Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization, called the bill “a major reversal of the hard-won rights of transgender people in India,” including the landmark 2014 Supreme Court that established transgender rights in the country.

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties, an Indian human rights organization, took issue with the bill’s addition of a new criminal offence for “kidnapping and causing grievous hurt or severe injury in order to force a person to assume a transgender identity.”

That language, the organization warns, “can be weaponized to target support structures and individuals that provide help to transgender individuals facing abuse and rejection by their natal families.”

“Moreover, it infringes upon the right to privacy, choice and autonomy of transgender persons, foregrounding a stereotypical understanding of transgender identity as based on coercion, inducement, fraud and violence, and not on personal choice,” it said in a statement.

Indian Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar defended the bill during parliamentary debate, arguing that the law continues to provide protections for transgender people as intended, according to the Times of India. 

CBC was not able to reach Kumar for comment before press time.

In the text of the bill, the government argues it is simply providing clear and specific definitions that are in keeping with the original intent of the 2019 legislation. 

“The intent, object and purpose of the Act is and was to protect a specified class of persons socially and culturally known as transgender people who face societal discrimination of an extreme and oppressive nature,” it said.

“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.”

‘We are survivors’

Merchant accused Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party of participating in a kind of “modern colonization” — ignoring India’s historical acceptance of gender diversity, and following the lead of right-wing governments in the West, especially that of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose Republicans have passed a wave of anti-transgender legislation in recent years. 

“If the so-called developed countries are doing this, then there is also this pattern of blindly aping the West, in fact, without looking at our own cultural and very strong roots,” she said.

“This is the land of Kamasutra. This is the land where more than two genders were absolutely OK.”

Because of those deep roots, she says, India’s transgender community is deeply resilient and ready to fight. Already, she says, Lakshya Trust is collaborating with other allies to challenge the bill in court.

“We are survivors,” she said. “We will be fighting, and we are going to take to the streets.”