For Kris Chudawala, a 29-year-old trans masculine person based in Bengaluru, the moment of reckoning came quickly. In the six hours that it took for both Houses of Parliament to debate the Trans Bill 2026, “my life has turned upside down,” said Kris. But they hadn’t really expected things to go differently; they knew it would be passed. Kris went numb as they watched the live debates. “I think it’s just the feeling of… witnessing the destruction [of trans rights],” they said.
A sense of rupture has spread through the trans community since the Rajya Sabha passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, on the evening of 25 March. Passed by both Houses within less than two weeks of its introduction in the Lok Sabha on 13 March, the Bill seeks to amend the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. It has sparked nationwide outrage for its removal of self-identification of gender, the imposition of medical scrutiny to determine whether a trans person’s identity is legally valid, as well as its inclusion of provisions that potentially criminalise trans communities and their support networks. As queerbeat has earlier reported, several Opposition MPs argued against the Bill, asking why the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was passing it in such haste.
No single sentiment captures the community’s response, which has been part shock, part exhaustion, and part calibration for what lies ahead. Queer and trans communities are trying to answer the same question: what now?
The Bill will be notified as a law once it gains the President’s assent, but it is still unclear when that will be. With no certain timeline, it is difficult to ascertain when its impact will begin to unfold. queerbeat spoke with over a dozen people—community leaders, LGBTQIA+ activists, and lawyers—to understand what’s on their mind and what the way forward could look like. Most of them reiterated the need for caution. Lawyers warned that rushing into litigation against the Bill without nationwide community consultation could prove counterproductive. “It is better to take it slow, I think, undoubtedly,” said Saurabh Kirpal, an openly gay senior Delhi High Court lawyer. “Formulate a legal strategy in consultation with the entire community, and then move, preferably through the high court.”
Activists across the country are mobilising large-scale demonstrations and consultative meetings even as they prepare for a long fight ahead. For trans persons undergoing gender-affirming medical care, the limbo period before the Bill is enacted into law is one of confusion about continuing to transition, as the Bill introduces new administrative processes for medical institutions offering such procedures.
Rallying together
This is a moment of strategic restraint, said activists interviewed by queerbeat. Broader community consultation and legal recourse have emerged as immediate priorities. While community leaders expressed a clear intent to challenge the legislation, they also emphasised the need for careful deliberation—both in assessing judicial avenues and in building a more expansive, inclusive national response beyond urban centres.
Demonstrations are unfolding nationwide, spanning the country’s metropolitan centres and smaller cities. About 300 trans persons protested near the district collectorate in Chennai on 23 March, soon after the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, calling for its withdrawal. After the Rajya Sabha passed the Bill on 25 March, LGBTQIA+ members and activists gathered at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan. Hundreds gathered in Varanasi under the Banaras Queer-Trans and Kinnar Sangathan, two days later, and in Bengaluru under the Movement For Gender and Sexual Pluralism on 28 March. On 29 March, hundreds of trans and queer activists, organisations, and allies from across the country gathered at Jantar Mantar in Delhi under the banner of “Dilli Chalo” (Let’s go to Delhi) to protest the Bill. Representatives from queer collectives across various states, including Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh, spoke against the Bill. “One of the big things on our mind is to figure out a system so we stay connected and inclusive as a movement against the Bill, because it is going to be a long fight,” said Don Hasar, a trans activist who has been involved in efforts to oppose the Bill and was present at the Delhi protest. More protests are being planned in other cities.
Over the past two weeks, Zena Sagar, a 30-year-old Dalit trans woman and independent media producer, has led two social media campaigns against the amendment—an awareness campaign called Bill Toh Kaccha Hai Ji! (This Bill is Weak) and an email campaign, Queers Against Trans Bill ‘26. “Over 1,00,000 emails were sent to members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha,” because of these efforts, according to an Instagram post by Queers Against Trans Bill. (Tamil Nadu MP and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Thamizhachi Thangapandian responded to emails from her constituents, assuring them that she would oppose the Bill. She followed through on this promise in the Lok Sabha.)
Zena and her team of creators are currently working on a campaign to help citizens send appeals to India’s President, Droupadi Murmu, before she considers giving the Bill her assent. “What we need to do is actually create a larger societal push towards the upholding of constitutional morality for transgender people,” Zena told queerbeat. G Kiran Raj, a 47-year-old lawyer from Hyderabad who is mobilising protests against the Bill, agreed with Zena. If the Bill gains presidential assent, the next and final step in lawmaking would be its publication in the Gazette of India. Once enacted as law, this amendment could be challenged in the high courts and the Supreme Court. But activists are still evaluating their options.
Informed legal recourse
“This is not the first time we’ve been in this situation as a community,” said Arvind Narrain, a queer lawyer and founding member of Bengaluru-based lawyers’ collective Alternative Law Forum (ALF), at a support meeting on 26 March. He was referring to the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment that overturned a 2009 Delhi High Court ruling and reinstated Section 377—a colonial-era law criminalising same-sex relationships—of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court partially struck down this section in 2018 and decriminalised same-sex relationships.
After the 2013 judgement, corporate organisations were worried about continuing to support community interventions as part of their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, Arvind recalled. Since this verdict had upheld the criminal provisions of Section 377, it had caused widespread fear among the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies. Similar questions have followed the passage of the Trans Bill in the Parliament, as many wonder whether they will be criminalised for supporting trans individuals.
But these fears can be addressed through a careful understanding of the law and one’s rights. Going forward, a much-warranted critique of the Bill would have to be supported by “how creatively we [lawyers] interpret this framework,” he added.
Inclusive interpretations become particularly crucial when one considers some of the arguments politicians made in support of the Bill in the Parliament. “If someone identifies as genderfluid or non-binary in their personal life, social relations, or dressing sense, way of speaking, or presenting themselves, then that is their inalienable right,” said BJP MP Parmar Jasvantsinhh Salamsinhh from Gujarat in the Rajya Sabha. But when this person “goes to the government counter and… says, ‘… I want welfare benefits on the basis of being a transgender person,’ then they step out of the personal domain into the public executive domain. The rules change in that domain,” he said. Through his argument—that having a self-perceived identity is valid, but claiming the right to welfare on the basis of this identity is not—Salamsinhh seemed to offer a selective reading of the Supreme Court’s 2014 judgment in NALSA vs Union of India, which held that trans persons have an absolute right to affirm their gender.
Several politicians who spoke against the Bill in Parliament used this very judgment and its position on self-identification to bolster their arguments, Manavi Atri, a lawyer working with the LGBTQIA+ community, noted at the ALF meeting. The rights upheld by the Supreme Court’s 2014 judgment—and enshrined in the Constitution—cannot be reversed, Arvind emphasised.
Judicial intervention against the Bill would have to be sought with caution, warned several lawyers and activists. Priya Patil, member of trans rights organisation Kinnar Maa Trust, agreed. “Legal advice is extremely important in this current situation, and national-level community consultations must happen… in every Indian state and union territory… Not just in urban territory but also in rural territory,” she said. Priya, who has been part of anti-Bill mobilisation efforts in Mumbai, added that the community’s immediate efforts are geared towards coordination across queer groups and raising public awareness about the issues that trans and queer people could face if the Bill is enacted into law. Priya is the president of the LGBTQIA+ cell of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), but she emphasised that she was speaking to queerbeat as a representative of Kinnar Maa Trust.
Premature public interest litigations (PILs) filed before the Bill is studied thoroughly would do more harm than good, said Chennai-based advocate and trans woman Kanmani Ray. “The language in the amendment Bill is vague,” said Kanmani. “Rushing the matter to the court without a well thought-out strategy will only jeopardise the cause.”
Once the Bill is enacted into law, anyone who believes that it causes them harm could take the fight to the courts, Kanmani noted. While there are two valid routes, she recommended one over the other. “No PILs, please; only writ petitions,” she said.
To understand Kanmani’s recommendation, it is important to distinguish between the two. A PIL is filed in the broader public interest. The petitioner need not be personally affected by the legislation or action in question; instead, the concern is wider public harm or a constitutional issue. A writ petition, by contrast, generally requires that the petitioner be directly and personally affected. It is typically filed before the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution—which gives every individual the right to move the apex court for the enforcement of their fundamental rights—or before a high court under Article 226, which gives high courts the power to direct authorities to enforce an individual’s fundamental rights and other rights.
Given that writ petitions can be filed on the grounds of a violation of a person’s fundamental rights, which this Bill seeks to take away, they stand a stronger chance before the court, said Kanmani. Whether the judicial challenge to the Bill is presented through a PIL or a writ petition “is not as important as the forum you approach,” said Saurabh. He recommended going to the high courts across the country first, “because there are certain high courts which are sympathetic to the queer cause.” Going straight to the Supreme Court poses a danger since it would mean that were a petition to be dismissed outright, it would be “the end of the road,” Saurabh said. “If some high court rules against you, you still have a chance to appeal in [the] Supreme Court,” he added.
Transgender lawyers across the country are connected and working together, Kanmani told queerbeat. “There are people drafting petitions right now; the moment it [the amendment Bill] gets published, the petitions will start getting filed.”
Since judicial remedies are available to anyone who chooses to act, there is a risk of being overtaken by others too, pointed out Saurabh. “A lot of this legal strategy may get out of your control because all you need is one individual somewhere—who is not part of this community, or some[one] overzealous or with mala fide intent might just directly move Supreme Court,” he said. “We may be all thinking and having discussions that we wait, but we are not the only petitioners.”
A time for caution
Trans and queer activists have spearheaded the opposition to the Bill nationwide. In West Bengal alone, 16 queer and hijra-led organisations are leading mobilisation efforts, said Koyel Ghosh, part of anti-Bill organising efforts and managing trustee at Sappho for Equality, a social justice NGO in Kolkata. These organisations are also “trying to bring in” some feminist groups, “because the movement cannot be limited to us—it’s about bodily autonomy,” Koyel added.
Many trans individuals are worried about how the Bill will affect their access to legal documentation, gender-affirming medical procedures, and housing. Kris, for instance, was preparing to apply for a transgender certificate of identity. They are undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and are seeking to revise their gender assigned to them at birth (female) to male under Section 7 of the 2020 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, which requires hospital-issued proof of medical intervention. But since Kris is a trans masc person—among the identities that the 2026 Bill excludes in its definition of transgender persons—they are no longer sure if they will be able to get the certificate.
“I thought I had a few months,” Kris told queerbeat. “But once it [the Bill] was passed quickly in Lok Sabha and then taken up in Rajya Sabha, that idea collapsed.” They recalled feeling “a sense of doom—a realisation that life is going to be paused for years.”
The next thought that crossed Kris’s mind was that if the Bill were to become an Act, it would likely be challenged in court. But this possibility brought little solace. “Litigation takes years,” Kris noted. Kris is now waiting to study the detailed rules and regulations that will follow from the Bill.
Like Kris, many trans people who are undergoing HRT as part of their medical transition are worried about whether they will be able to continue. There is widespread confusion about whether the Bill would require state-appointed medical authorities to approve or document an individual’s decision to access the therapy. Given the Bill’s criminal provisions, many are also anxious about being persecuted for helping trans friends in need.
Take the case of Yashika, a 30-year-old trans woman PhD scholar at Punjab University. Yashika, who hails from a Dalit family in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, started HRT six months ago and plans to have gender reassignment surgery. But since the Bill has passed, Yashika worries that her plans might be disrupted. Part of this is because of ambiguity about whether the Bill will affect the work of healthcare professionals providing gender-affirming care. Over half a dozen organisations in West Bengal are “consulting doctors to understand the implications for people on hormones [for gender transition] or seeking gender-affirming surgery,” said Koyel. “They are also seeking clarifications on the question of whether medical professionals could face prosecution for providing such care or certification,” they added.
The Bill requires the medical institution where a person has accessed gender-affirming surgery to submit the individual’s details to the concerned district magistrate, pointed out Manavi, the lawyer who spoke at the ALF consultation. Nithya Rajshekhar, a lawyer and member of the SC-appointed Justice Asha Menon Advisory Committee on transgender rights, also present at the ALF discussion, pointed to this provision too. (According to a report by The Hindu, this Advisory Committee, appointed by the Supreme Court as part of its proceedings in the Jane Kaushik vs Union of India case, asked the government to withdraw the Transgender Bill.) However, the Bill does not explicitly mention that HRT or other forms of gender-affirming care other than surgery need to be reported to the district magistrate, said both Nithya and Manavi.
“Don’t take any decisions because of external pressure,” Manavi cautioned trans persons. The choice to come out to friends and family or at work—or to have surgery or HRT—is deeply personal and must not be rushed, especially if someone is still exploring their gender identity, she added. With community consultations ongoing, there is no need to lose hope, legal experts say. Much will rest on India’s judiciary once the Bill is notified. “We hope that the [Supreme] Court will stay this particular law, as it violates NALSA,” Arvind said. For Kris, this is a grim deja vu. “It reminds me of the period after 2013, when Section 377 was reinstated, until 2018 when it was struck down again,” they said. “This feels like a similar moment for trans people—a dark period before eventual relief.”