In the narrow, winding alleys of Srinagar’s Dalgate, the rhythms of many transgender person’s lives are dictated by the ebb and flow of the wedding season, punctuated by a constant struggle for bread. Dalgate is the busy entry point to Kashmir’s famous Dal Lake, where tourists, houseboats, and shikaras converge into a restless bustle. Tucked behind this vibrant facade is a maze of lanes and time-worn homes where many members of the trans community live on rent. Known for their roles as matchmakers and performers at weddings, they are a familiar, accepted part of everyday life in the neighbourhood.
But a sense of foreboding hangs over the transgender community in Kashmir. Their anxieties are rooted in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026. which were recently enacted into law despite fierce opposition from the trans and queer community. The amendments dismantle trans rights across India by removing the right to self-identify one’s gender, subjecting a trans person’s legal recognition to medical scrutiny and introducing criminal provisions that could be weaponised against trans persons as well as their support networks.
In Kashmir, among the most militarised regions in the world, the amendments have sparked concerns of erasure and compounded marginalisation, noted Aijaz Ahmad Bund, a cisgender queer activist and researcher.
As about half a dozen trans women, activists, and lawyers interviewed by queerbeat pointed out, identity is deeply intertwined with culture and religion for Kashmiri transgender persons. Yet, the amended Act’s definition of trans persons, which includes only certain socio-cultural identities, makes no mention of centuries-old indigenous identities from this region, such as Khwaja Siras (a respectful, historical term for transgender persons), Manzimyors (matchmakers), and Khunsi (intersex persons). This exclusion, combined with the amended Act’s removal of the right to self-perceived gender identity—a right previously affirmed and upheld as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court’s landmark NALSA vs Union of India judgment in 2014—has prompted fears over whether these identities may no longer be recognised as legally valid.
The amended Act’s introduction of government-appointed medical boards to “verify” a trans person’s identity is particularly fraught in Kashmir, where most people from the community have not medically transitioned, those interviewed by queerbeat said. The result of such a move will be “double marginalisation,” said Aijaz, who is also the chairperson of the Sonzal Welfare Trust—one of the region’s few organisations working with gender and sexual minorities. Aijaz has spent over a decade documenting the lives of gender minorities in Kashmir.
“Kashmiri bodies are already subject to constant surveillance,” Aijaz added, alluding to the widely documented breadth and intensity of state surveillance and censorship in the region. “The Bill’s requirement for medical boards acts as an additional surveillance that adds more trauma to the existing social trauma.”
Given the distinct social realities in Kashmir, the trans community experiences significantly lower levels of social acceptance, visibility, and access to social spaces compared to other regions in India, Aijaz told queerbeat.
“Traditional social roles and spaces, such as toli-badhai (blessings offered by trans individuals during rituals and ceremonies), are no longer prevalent in Kashmir, Aijaz said. Although matchmaking once provided members of the trans community with a stable livelihood, it has waned since many people now choose to opt out of arranged marriages or use online matchmaking applications instead, he added.
In 2013, Aijaz conducted a survey of 100 Kashmiri trans women. His research was published in the IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal. The study found that the community faces severe social and economic marginalisation. Among those surveyed, 60 percent reported facing verbal abuse, while 15 percent said they had experienced physical and sexual harassment. About half the respondents said they worked as matchmakers, dancers at wedding parties, or as domestic helpers, while 45 percent said they were unemployed. Around half the respondents also reported earning less than 1,000 rupees a month.
The amended Act could further deepen these inequities, said trans persons who spoke to queerbeat. Many described the requirement for medical boards as an act of indignity—one that strikes at both their economic precarity and their sense of self.
“The government is supposed to provide clothes to people, not strip them for tests,” said Shabnam, a 50-year-old community leader and transgender woman who hails from Sopore in north Kashmir.
Shabnam said that she completed her matriculation in 1990 and left her home in 1997 because her family objected to her gender identity. She later moved to Srinagar, where she lived for many years in a rented accommodation in the city’s Maisuma neighbourhood. She had only 500 rupees in her pocket then—the sum her landlord charged her as rent, she recalled. So that she could use the money at hand to stock up on necessities first, she insisted on paying the rent at the end of the month. “Then I started wearing girls’ clothes and wandering here and there,” Shabnam recounted. Within a week, she met another trans leader, Babita, who has since passed away. Babita took Shabnam under her wing. “I went with her and started learning the art of manzimyor (matchmaking),” Shabnam added. As time passed, she became adept at the skill herself. “I tied the knots of thousands of people and built myself up through earnings from matchmaking, eventually buying my own house,” she said.
Shabnam, who has not medically transitioned, offered a pithy assessment of the amended Act. “They have gone mad,” she said, referring to its requirement for medical scrutiny. “How can you ask someone my age to go through this? There is a certain dignity to a person’s service and age,” she added.
Shabnam expressed her frustration over the lack of Kashmiri representatives in the National Council for Transgender Persons, a statutory body meant to advise the government on policies relating to trans and intersex people. In the absence of a local member, she argued, the community in Kashmir remains “unaware and uninformed” about decisions the government is making on their behalf. When the NCTP was established in 2020, one of its nominated members was a representative from the administration of Jammu and Kashmir. This is no longer the case after the Council was reconstituted in 2023. No member of the Kashmiri transgender community has ever been a part of the Council.
Bablu Sheikh, a 53-year-old trans woman and community leader from the Dalgate area of Srinagar, echoed Shabnam’s concerns. The amended Act’s requirement for trans persons to undergo medical evaluations is “incredibly humiliating,” said Bablu. She works as a matchmaker and wedding singer and is among the very few Kashmiri trans persons who live with their family.
The trans community in Kashmir comprises trans men and trans women, many of whom have not transitioned medically, Aijaz said. Currently, Aijaz estimated, there are likely around 15–16 trans persons who have medically transitioned in Kashmir. (According to the 2011 census, there are 4,137 trans persons across Jammu and Kashmir.)
Sahiba, a 32-year-old community member from Srinagar, rejects the modern labels often imposed by outside activists.
“We are not ‘trans women.’ We identify through our culture—we are Manzimyors. That is our identity and how we earn,” Sahiba, who also works as a singer and dancer at weddings, told queerbeat. “We don’t eat from the government; we eat from our society. We are remembered for weddings and family events. We have respect there.”
Sahiba’s insistence on identifying as Manzimyor stands in direct contrast to the amended Act’s understanding of transgender persons. The amendments to the 2019 Act restrict the legal definition of transgender to a few, specific socio-cultural identities, such as hijra, kinnar, aravani, and jogta, as well as persons with intersex variations.
This means that transgender identities prevalent in Kashmir may not be legally recognised within the amended Act’s new definition. In the region, identity is shaped as much by labels as by social roles. Roles such as manzimyor or dambael-maesh (wedding performers), for instance, are deeply rooted in the Valley’s cultural fabric and continue to foster a sense of belonging for trans women within the community. Although words like Khunsi for intersex individuals and Khwaja Sira for trans persons are also part of the lexicon in Kashmir, many continue to use the hurtful pejorative laanch.
The amended Act’s erasure of these identities is not just a matter of culture. For many in the community, identity is inseparable from faith. They experience the amended Act’s imposition of a medical framework as a religious affront.
“We are Muslims. We are Allah’s servants. We will not change our gender for the sake of a Bill or for money,” said Mehak Mir, a 31-year-old community leader from the Habba Kadal locality of Srinagar. Mehak also works as a matchmaker and performer at weddings. For her, medical transitions run counter to the tenets of Islam. “As Allah created us, we will stay that way. The concepts of ‘gender transition’ do not align with the identity of trans people in Kashmir. We survive on the support of local society, not the government.”
Taken together, these testimonies point to a community whose identity—cultural, religious, and economic—is constituted largely outside the frameworks that the amended Act recognises. Aijaz sees this as a deliberate act of legal erasure. “[The new Act] severely limits the understanding of transgender identity,” he said. By excluding those who haven’t medically transitioned, are gender non-binary, or who simply do not identify as male or female, the amended Act “invisibilises them and invalidates the existence of everyone who doesn’t fit into their [the government’s] narrow definition,” Aijaz added.
The amendments also introduce new provisions that carry punishments of up to 10 years for “compelling” a person to identify as transgender. Kashmiri activists fear these provisions could be used to criminalise the community’s traditional support structures—in particular the guru-chela system, in which an experienced community elder (guru) takes in and supports younger trans persons (chelas) who have been abandoned by their families. In Aijaz’s 2013 study, every single respondent reported that their families and communities had been unsupportive of their gender identity and that they had faced social discrimination.
“The guru-chela system—particularly as it operates in Kashmir—is not a coercive structure for most who enter it. It is, in the absence of state-provided shelter, family acceptance, or institutional support, the only social safety net that exists for trans youth abandoned by their families,” said Ahra Syed, a senior lawyer and politician associated with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)—the principal opposition party in Jammu and Kashmir. “When the state criminalises this kinship network without simultaneously establishing rehabilitation homes, safe houses, or income-support mechanisms, it is not rescuing anyone. It is removing the only floor beneath people already in free fall,” she added.
Many conversations queerbeat had with members of the trans community circled back to the basics of survival. The Jammu and Kashmir government offers a monthly pension to trans persons, who view it as wholly inadequate. “Most of our community members live in rented accommodations. We are struggling to pay rent, electricity, and water bills while trying to eat,” said Bablu. “The government provides only a 1,000 rupees remuneration as pension. In 2026, what is the value of 1,000 rupees? It does not even cover diabetic medicine.”
Shabnam shared Bablu’s frustration. “Instead of medical boards, the government should focus on waiving electricity, water, and gas fees for the community to help them survive,” she said.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference-led coalition government recently introduced a 1.13 lakh crore rupee budget for the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, but it did not offer any new welfare measures for the transgender community. Community members were left wondering why the state is so obsessed with “verifying” their bodies while the local government is ignoring their hunger.
The message from the Kashmir Valley’s transgender community to the government is one of exhaustion and defiance.“We don’t want this Bill,” said Bablu. “The government should keep it to themselves. Don’t pressurise us to be in a particular form. Just let us live.”
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Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Kashmiri word for intersex persons as “Gulsai.” This has been changed to “Khunsi,” which is the correct word. queerbeat regrets the error.