Transgenders unhappy with provisions in proposed bill

New Delhi: Though the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal to introduce the Transgender Person (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019, people from the community are not happy as they feel that their demands and recommendations have not been incorporated in the proposed bill yet.

The bill will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament. With an aim to mitigate the stigma, discrimination and abuse against the transgender community, the bill provides a mechanism for their social, educational and economic empowerment. However, people from the community are not ready to accept it.

Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Swati Bidhan Baruah, first judge from the community in a Lok Adalat in Guwahati, said, “The bill pays no heed to the National Legal Service Authority vs Union of India (NASA) judgement of 2014 where the Supreme Court held that transgenders have a right to non-binary self determination and directed the Central and state governments to ensure reservation in education and public employment for the community. In fact, the bill completely overturns the judgement by mandating Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) and criminalising the only means of livelihood for most transgender people— begging.”

When a similar bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016, transgenders opposed it on the ground that the legislation meant to safeguard their interests only serves to undermine their right to life and livelihood.

The bill also faced flak for its definition of transgenders as “partly female or male; or a combination of female and male; or neither female nor male”. The bill was subsequently sent to the standing committee on social justice and empowerment for consultation.

“Instead of upholding the right to self-determine one’s gender, the bill provides for ambiguous definitions, invasive procedures and increased criminality, to add to the hurt and humiliation of trans and intersex persons,” Swati added.

Swati Bidhan Baruah also alleged that the bill carries forward the stigmatisation of non-conforming gender identities as an “illness” or pathology.

The proposed bill requires transgenders to submit a certification process before a panel of medical officers, psychologists and psychiatrists to determine their gender, and provides for recognition of a person as either man or woman only after mandatory Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS).

As a legal expert belonging to the community itself, Swati Bidhan Baruah said: “The bill also empowers the court to send transgenders into the custody of ‘rehabilitation centres’ on being abandoned by their birth-families, which are primary sites of their torture and harassment. By failing to recognise ‘families of choice’ among hijras as self-determined arrangements of care, the bill violates their freedom of association in intimate and personal relations, and of those facing common oppression.”