Rise of State-Sanctioned Harassment: The Strategic Erasure of India’s Transgender Community

People from the LGBTQ+ community take part in a rally over Transgender (Amendment) Bill in Kolkata on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.’

Introduction

India– a nation whose very premise is built on the values of belonging, multiculturalism and community– now faces a lingering shadow where the colonial sun threatens to rise again. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, marginalises a group of mere 1% population and reinforces Victorian-era stereotypes that were once used to justify systematic harassment and state-sanctioned mistreatment of the trans community. In pursuing this path, India risks burning away decades of social development in favour of a discarded, discriminatory path. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s use of diversionary tactics has once again effectively silenced dissent and persuaded the majority into believing that their own propriety is linked to the subjugation of others. This strategic ambiguity and obscurity serve as a grim harbinger of a future defined by consolidated iron rule. This bill works to replace the right to self-identification with a medical certification process and introduces stricter punishments for ‘crimes’, primarily the misuse of reservations by cis individuals and ‘inducing’ identity onto people, especially children. 

Criticisms

With the new bill, there is an evident shift from identity to biology– while intending to provide a precise definition of trans, they have ironically blurred the line between intersex individuals and transgender individuals. Moreover, socio-cultural groups, like Hijra, kinner and Aravani, have been grouped under the label of intersex. These faux pas are seen perpetually in the government’s understanding of the third gender. Anatomical examinations headed by a Chief Medical Officer are mandatory to identify whether the individual has the biological variations specified in the Act– this includes checking for congenital variations, external genitalia, chromosomal patterns and gonadal development. It remains unclear how the medical board intends to quantify socio-cultural identities through physiological testing– a procedure that is fundamentally at odds with the lived reality of these groups. Verification for medical transition involves the District Magistrate, who examines the recommendation provided by the said medical board and can call upon the expertise of ‘any other medical expert’. This law creates several points where harassment and vulnerability are likely to increase. Verifying gender and the vagueness regarding which procedure determines transidentification under the act may lead to invasive physical examinations of the genitalia or the chest region. This is just another way of promoting state-sanctioned sexual harassment. Pathologising trans individuals as medical conditions that need to be ‘proved’ and ‘tested’ or diagnosed by a team of doctors is evidently rooted in rudimentary transphobia. By eroding their original legal identities and substituting them with an intentionally convoluted bureaucratic procedure, the government strategically disenfranchises the population. This legal labyrinth severs their access to essential documentation– ration cards, passports, voters' IDs– thereby stripping them of their basic rights to sustenance, mobility, and political agency. Lastly, the government completely neglects the pressing issue of the guru-chela system that binds young individuals deprived of a home into livelihoods of begging and sex work. Where are the government-led initiatives, schools and agendas working for the literacy and upliftment of these communities? Where is their Viksit Bharat- Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika (VB- G RAM G)? Although discomfort has been noted in these rigid traditional systems, life imprisonment for the same, by simply imposing punishments onto kindhearted caregivers that take in deprived children and provide guidance, one cannot put a curtain on the discrimination of these cultural groups in institutions and work settings. When glancing at the official statistics, the narrative provided by the government of widespread fraud and inducement cases proves idiomatic, because there is no official data provided to support their claims. Firstly, as of March 2026, the government has reported the rejection of 5,566 applications for transgender identity cards, out of 42,000 applications– the clarifications for these rejections are, however, not aligned with the current concerns. No public data shows a significant trend of cisgender people successfully ‘posing’ as transgender to steal benefits. Secondly, the claims of coercion so often pointed out by the government point to the traditional Gharaana system (or mentorship), which acts primarily as a safety net for individuals rejected by their biological families. The struggles against bonded labour, prostitution and begging stem from the wider issue of societal acceptance and recognition.

Conclusion

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, works in tandem with the Special Intensive Revisions occurring in Bihar to slowly but surely erase a vulnerable segment of the electorate. Small-scale independent surveys, such as one conducted by Queerbeat, suggest a split in voting preferences. In a focused sample of 32 LGBTQIA+ respondents, 7 individuals reported voting for the BJP, while 24 favoured the INDIA bloc. The political drive focuses towards what organisations like Amnesty International call ‘the creation of unpersons’. By weaponising definitions of gender that go against both International Law and India’s own legal precedents, the state ensures that individuals who fail to enter into these narrow medical definitions are deprived of their right to vote. Through this, the BJP is profiting off a public indifference towards minority groups so small that their eraser can be executed in silence, effectively stripping them of their most sacred democratic powers– the vote. In times like these, one must remember the wise words of Hannah Arendt. They act as a prophecy to what India may look like if political figures are idolised rather than kept in check. 

‘To be stripped of your identity is to be stripped of your place in the world. When the state decides who exists, democracy ceases to be a right and becomes a privilege of the few.’

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By Kavya

Kavya is a 10th Grade student studying in Bhavan Vidhyalaya Chandigarh.

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