Ever since the amended its version of the Transgender Protection of Rights Bill, the transgender

community had opposed the bill as they have their own culture and they should be consulted in
the process of legislative action. Though the government’s Bill is presented in Lok Sabha to
provide full protection, recognition and to protect the rights of transgender people.

The government has defined a transgender person as a person whose gender does not match with
the gender assigned to that person at birth.
The only thing in the amendments that is actually appreciated and reflects the feedback given by
Trans gender is a slightly improved definition of the word ‘transgender.’

According to them, “their demands are always ignored by government and they are always seen
as minority and marginalized. If Protection Bill was introduced to protect them then why it is
made less stringent for them, the attackers face a maximum jail term of two years if transgender
people are sexually attacked, whereas there is a minimum of seven years of jail for women who
are attacked sexually.”

The Bill is unclear on a transgender person's right to self-identify. While the previous bill said a
transgender person "shall have a right to self-perceived gender identity", it mandated a two-step
process for legal gender recognition by requiring a trans person to apply for a "transgender
certificate" which would require surgery and documentation by a medical authority confirming
it. As per the bill, the district magistrate was given the power to judge the "correctness" of the
application.

The Bill has criminalized begging which has made trans community bit vulnerable since many
trans people in India are forced to take to begging due to lack of employment opportunities.

If young trans persons want to leave home because of the social and mental pressure to adapt to
the sex they were born with, they can no longer join the trans community. They must go instead
to a court, which will send them to a “rehabilitation centre”.

Most importantly, the 2019 bill keeps in place a regressive stance on their reservation in
admissions to educational institutions and public services. Even in 2014 Supreme judgment in
National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, court also held a decision to grant them
reservation as the community is marginalized in this country for years.

The Bill has raise many questions on government as it refuses to address a range of issues that
characterized the complex nature of trans identities in India. Even in the committee formed by
the govt. there is no Trans gender person to raise their community concerns and issues.
 certification process while failing to provide affirmative action for the transgender community
in politics, employment, or education. The bill also fails to expand the definition of family to
include families of choice, like hijra gharanas, and refuses

While the word begging, which the community said was targeted towards hijra culture, has been
removed from the current bill, it still does not recognise support systems of non-blood relatives
as families,

The community wanted their traditional source of income--Basti Badhai--to be protected under
the law.

they have given a list of demands but this government as usual ignored it. With this Bill, they
have proved that they are against minorities.”

The Bill was opposed for criminalising begging – which made the trans community particularly
vulnerable

Our trans forefathers and foremothers formed it;

"We have our

the legislation has met with vociferous protests from the transgender community.

All other clauses of the Bill, which have already been publicly and vocally, criticize as
government paid no attention to the feedback of Trans people. The government is supposed to
draft laws and schemes for the people but this Bill is totally against the people

“The Bill is equal to killing trans people.,”

The passed Bill was introduced by the BJP government, watering down the already existing
Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014, passed in the Rajya Sabha.

a community so vociferously oppose a Bill that is drafted in the name of the protection of its
rights

and against which detailed alternative recommendations have been given, have been passed as it
is

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha on July
19, 2019 by the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Mr. Thaawarchand Gehlot.

The 2016 bill problematically defined transgender individuals as “neither wholly female nor
male” and went as far as to require transpersons to appear before a screening committee that
would determine their gender identity. Moreover, that bill criminalised begging, which not only
forms a part of the trans culture in South Asia but is also the only means of survival available to
the vast majority of transgender people abandoned by their families.

Massive public mobilisation by transgender activists ensured that the 2016 bill could not clear
both the houses of parliament. In July this year, the government made amendments to the bill and
reintroduced it in the lower house.

The 2019 version changes the definition of “transgender” and does away with the criminalisation
of begging. It also provides for penal provisions for crimes committed against the transgender
community. But these are than those for crimes committed against women, which effectively
renders transgender people as second-class citizens.