New Delhi: By the time Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar rose from his seat in the Lok Sabha Tuesday to move the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, for consideration, the terms of the debate had been set.
On one side, the government argued it was protecting a vulnerable community from exploitation and abuse. On the other side, the transgender community itself argued that the bill dismantled the very rights it claimed to uphold.
The bill was later passed by voice vote, as sections of the Opposition staged a walkout.
What the bill does is remove the right to self-identify one’s gender—affirmed by the Supreme Court in its 2014 NALSA judgment and encoded in the 2019 Act—and replaces it with a medical board and a district magistrate.
A designated board, headed by a Chief Medical Officer or Deputy CMO appointed by the states or Union Territories, will examine applicants and make recommendations. The DM will then issue—or withhold—identity certificates based on those recommendations.
The definition of who counts as transgender has also narrowed. The Opposition clarified that it now excludes transgender men, transgender women without surgery, gender-queer individuals, and diverse cultural identities, such as kothi and jogta.
The minister did not see it that way.
“The objective of this legislation is solely to protect those individuals who face severe social exclusion due to their gender identity,” Kumar told the House.
He framed the bill’s centrepiece provision—the medical board—as a response to a documented crisis: adults and children being abducted, subjected to castration and hormone therapy, and forced to adopt transgender identities for the purposes of begging and exploitation.
He said the bill only treated such acts as crimes.
“The Act will be used only for people who are in need of protection and safety,” he added. “Our approach has been to give the trans community the legal protection they deserve. We will have to make sure that we do not discriminate against any citizen of the country.”
The Opposition, however, was not persuaded.
Also Read: Transgender amendment bill drops self-perceived identity, adds penalties for coerced identity change
Oppn reactions
Besides Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar, 15 Members of Parliament participated in the discussion on the bill. Among them, 11 MPs from Opposition parties—INC, DMK, TMC, SP, RJD, NCP and SS (UBT)—opposed the legislation, while four MPs from NDA parties expressed their support.
The opposition leaders emphasised that the bill violated the basic principles of the right to human dignity, as laid down in the NALSA judgment.
Meanwhile, the BJP and allied parties said that self-identification, if implemented, could lead to people claiming a trans identity to access reservations and other purported benefits.
DMK’s Dr T. Sumathy went straight at the bill’s constitutional logic. Pointing to Tamil Nadu’s record—the country’s first transgender welfare board and free gender-affirming surgeries—she contrasted “genuine inclusion” against the Centre’s “administrative superstition” and “draconian” approach. “When did dignity become selective? When did rights become exclusionary privileges?” she asked.
On what the medical board provision actually signals, she was direct: “What it really means is the state does not trust transgender persons. The state believes identity must be certified. The state believes autonomy is negotiable.”
She also recalled the Prime Minister’s earlier remarks on providing identity cards to the community and asked, “Was the identity real then and inconvenient now, or was it only a political slogan?”
On surveillance, she invoked a framework the government might not have intended: “The purpose of constant surveillance is to compel prisoners to regard themselves as subjects of correction. This government treats the trans community as a subject to be corrected, which is highly condemnable.”
Congress MP S. Jothimani called out the bill’s core logic: replacing the Supreme Court-recognised principle of self-determination with bureaucratic approval would reduce personhood to paperwork, she said.
“Identity is not a certificate. Dignity is not subject to verification.” She warned that the bill’s vague criminalisation provisions could be turned against support networks and families of transgender persons, ultimately concluding that what the government had constructed was “exclusion by design”.
Samajwadi Party’s Anand Bhadauria called it a “regressive step” that stripped the self-identification right guaranteed by the 2019 Act.
He invoked demonetisation: “You made the country stand in a queue in the name of demonetisation, and now you are making the transgender community stand in a queue through the district magistrate.”
Drawing a pointed cultural contrast, he added, “You say you follow Lord Ram. If you really consider this Ram Rajya, then why are transgenders protesting on the streets?”
The bill is listed for consideration and passing in the Rajya Sabha Wednesday.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)