Trans activists, queer rights groups, and politicians across India are protesting a bill that dismantles the rights of trans persons in the country. But if a recent meeting between social justice ministry officials and members of the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP) is any indication, then the government is engaging with this criticism by burying its head in the sand.
First, a quick recap. On 13 March 2026, Social Justice Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Virendra Kumar introduced a contentious Bill in the Lok Sabha, which proposed amendments to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. As queerbeat had earlier reported, this Bill undermines the Supreme Court’s landmark 2014 judgment in NALSA vs Union of India, which affirmed that trans persons have an absolute right to self-identify their gender.
The Bill recommends a restrictive definition of trans persons that excludes transgender men, many trans women, and genderqueer people. It also gives state-appointed medical experts the power to determine whether a trans person’s identity is legally valid. It expands the 2019 Act’s existing list of punishable offences, adding provisions that reinforce stereotypes about trans persons and could likely be misused to criminalise them. Meanwhile, it does little to increase the protection of trans persons from violence or harassment.
Soon after the Bill was introduced, members of the NCTP—a body that advises the government on policies involving trans and intersex people—revealed that they were neither informed nor consulted about the amendments.
On 20 March 2026, the social justice ministry’s joint secretary called all six transgender members of the NCTP. They were asked to reach Delhi for a meeting with Virendra Kumar the very next afternoon. Given the short notice, only four members were able to make it: trans activists Kalki Subramaniam, Abhina Aher, Raveena Bariha, and Vidya Rajput.
Once the NCTP members reached the venue, they were told that Virendra Kumar would not join them after all. Officials said he had taken ill. Yogita Swaroop, the ministry’s senior economic advisor, chaired the meeting instead.
queerbeat interviewed two NCTP members who were present at the interaction: Abhina and Kalki. Their accounts paint a grim picture of the officials’ response to concerns about the Trans Bill.
The NCTP members opposed the Bill’s definition of trans persons, the medical evaluation it introduces, and its lack of protections for trans persons. The officials were unyielding and dismissive, said Abhina and Kalki.
Yogita began the meeting on a conciliatory note. “We want to listen to you, we want to hear you,” Abhina recalled her saying.
The official soon turned confrontational. “I am not going to make this an America,” Yogita said during a disagreement over penalising parents who stigmatise their trans children, Abhina recalled. Another official even dozed off at one point, Abhina added.
When the NCTP members asked officials why they had not been consulted before the Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha, they were met with condescension. “We have been talking to delegations for a long time; they have given us their submissions,” Abhina recalled Yogita saying. Kalki added that Yogita told the council, “There was no need to consult you all.”
The Council members were “completely crushed” when they walked out of the meeting, Kalki recalled. “It feels like we are going backward after years of struggle, sweat, and sacrifices by elders and activists across the country,” she said. “There was no empathy there; they are stubborn and will take this Bill [forward] and amend the Act.”
(queerbeat requested Yogita for comment over email. This copy will be updated if she responds.)
Officials double down on medicalisation
The 2019 Trans Act defines transgender people as those “whose gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at birth,” explicitly including trans men, trans women, people with intersex variations, and genderqueer people.
The 2026 Amendment Bill narrows this definition to socio-cultural identities such as “kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta, or eunuch,” intersex persons, and those who may have been “compelled” to present as transgender. It omits the explicit recognition of trans men, trans women, genderqueer people, and other gender-diverse communities outside the ambit of the identities it mentions.
The Bill also ramps up medical scrutiny. Under the 2019 Act, trans persons can secure a “certificate of identity” by applying online to the district magistrate of their region. Under the new Bill’s recommendations, trans persons would first have to secure authorisation from a government-appointed medical board before approaching the district magistrate. The district magistrate could also invite further medical scrutiny “if he considers [it] either necessary or desirable,” the Bill adds. Such provisions will pathologise trans identities, erode their bodily autonomy, and make an already flawed system harder to access, activists and lawyers told queerbeat.
The NCTP members challenged these provisions at the meeting. They underscored the importance of the right to self-affirmation for trans persons, invoking the Supreme Court’s 2014 judgment.
The social justice ministry officials appeared to conflate agency with whim. “They said people may say, ‘Today I feel something, tomorrow I feel something,’ but that is not a good way to define a government scheme for marginalised transgender people,” recalled Abhina. The officials justified the narrowed definition as a means to ensure targeted welfare. “They want to zero down on who can be seen in a medical framework as a transgender person,” Abhina added.
As far as the officials were concerned, people who do not fall under the categories listed in the Bill cause “confusion,” recalled Kalki. “They claimed that because of these ‘other’ identities, schemes are not reaching genuine, authentic trans people, and that educated, privileged people are taking advantage of the system,” she added. Abhina too recalled that the officials raised the spectre of “misuse of the schemes and services that could go to trans people.”
The NCTP members demanded that the Trans Bill broaden the list of socio-cultural identities listed under its definition of trans persons. They advocated for the inclusion of identities such as thirunangai and thirunambi—Tamil terms for trans women and trans men—as well as nupa maanba and nupi maanbi, terms used for trans women and trans men in Manipur.
“This is just a reference; all such identities will be considered—this is just for the official purpose of writing,” Abhina recalled the officials saying in response. Kalki thought that there was a “10 percent chance” that the officials would include the cultural identities the members had recommended. “Rest they will not change anything; they are being very stubborn,” she added.
Apathy on protections for trans persons
The 2019 Trans Act collapses a spectrum of offences against trans persons—discrimination, verbal abuse, assault, or rape—under a single penalty. The maximum penalty for a perpetrator in any of these cases is two years of imprisonment, along with a fine.
The Trans Bill does little to address this issue. Instead, it adds provisions involving people or children who are “compelled” to adopt trans identities or presentations, which, activists and lawyers argue, are built on colonial stereotypes and could be misused to criminalise existing support systems for trans persons.
The NCTP members pressed the social justice ministry officials on the lack of stronger protections against the sexual assault and rape of trans people. The officials brushed them off. They said that the “anatomy of a woman and trans woman is different,” Kalki recalled.
The NCTP members tried to reason with the officials by talking to them about trans lives and identities in detail, said Abhina. “They asked the difference between transgender and hijra, transgender and kinner; we explained,” she added. “But there’s a lack of understanding on gender identities… they were more interested in supporting certain chromosomal combinations.”
Kalki argued that sexual assault could also take non-penetrative forms such as “slapping, beating, torturing, and harm.” But Yogita shrugged these concerns off. She said that the punishments “cannot be the same,” Kalki recalled.
At that moment, “I felt small, so small,” Kalki added.
What support structures would the ministry put in place for trans persons who were stigmatised within their households and forced to leave, asked the NTCP members. “They should stay in their houses only,” Kalki recalled the officials saying in response. The officials, she added, blamed transgender persons for “luring” people away from their homes, trafficking them, and forcing them to beg.
Punishment for parents who drive their trans children out of their homes was not even a consideration. “They should stay with their parents regardless… they are their parents after all,” Kalki recalled the officials saying. “We said our parents are the ones who harass us,” said Abhina. Yogita responded by saying that the officials “will never punish the parents,” Abhina added.
Activists and lawyers say the Bill squanders a chance for reform; NCTP members raised these concerns at their meeting, too. “I said, ‘Three things are important if you want to make an amendment: education, employment, and health,’” Abhina told queerbeat. “Many transgender people drop out of education because of bullying and stigma.”
Backlash against Ministry
The Trans Bill will be up for debate in the Lok Sabha in the week starting 23 March. Kalki had earlier released a statement declaring that she would resign from the NCTP if the Bill were to become a law in its current form. She reiterated this stance after the meeting.
“I agree that when a child or adult is abducted and forced into begging and sex work, the perpetrator should be given maximum punishments,” she told queerbeat. “But when an innocent transgender person is not protected, an innocent trans woman who is raped and killed does not get justice—I will not accept it.”
On 21 March 2026, the Dalit transgender activist Grace Banu shared a letter addressed to the president of India on her Instagram profile. Grace outlined the dangers of the amendment, which she noted had caused “widespread anguish and pain within the transgender community of India.” Were the Bill to pass, Grace concluded, she would strongly demand that her application for a mercy killing be recommended by the president and other relevant authorities.
That same day, members of the National Network for Transgender Persons, a trans rights collective, met with Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. The meeting had been called to discuss the Delhi government’s recent approval of free bus travel for trans persons. But the members also voiced their concerns over the Trans Bill. Aryan Pasha, a trans man, former NCTP member, and current board member of the Network, recounted the exchange to queerbeat. He recalled telling the chief minister that trans men do not want to enter the toli-badhai system—a traditional practice in which trans persons earn their livelihood by offering blessings during rituals and ceremonies—or sex work or begging. “Those who want to can… but we actually want to work. So I requested her to start skill-based training or scholarships,” Aryan said. The chief minister and her staff listened to the collective without interruptions, but they did not offer any response, he added. Aryan also told queerbeat that he had earlier raised the issue of the rape and sexual assault of trans men with several ministers “thousands of times,” but they routinely overlooked it.
On 22 March, the Rachnatmak Congress—the Indian National Congress’s platform for civic engagement—organised a public discussion on the Trans Bill at the Press Club of India in Delhi. Politicians and activists called for Yogita’s resignation or dismissal.
Those who raised the demand for Yogita’s exit included Anish Gawande, an openly queer politician and a national spokesperson for the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar faction); Krishanu, a trans activist and researcher; Don Hasar, a trans activist and founder of the queer rights organisation Boundless; Grace Banu, a Dalit trans rights activist; Tan, a non-binary activist; and Nikunj Jain, a trans activist from Madhya Pradesh.
The NCTP “is a statutory body with senior leaders who are luminaries in their respective fields,” Anish told queerbeat. Insulting them during the meeting, “that too on an amendment that shows the Ministry’s absolute lack of understanding of transgender issues—which is precisely the reason behind the constitution of the National Council—is a disgraceful display of bureaucratic arrogance and transphobia,” he added.
“From this platform I want to demand the resignation of Yogita Swaroop… is bureaucrat ko hatao,” (remove this bureaucrat), Anish said during the panel to resounding cheers from the audience. “Shame,” chanted the audience when Anish recounted details of Yogita’s exchange with the NCTP members. Congress politician and Rajya Sabha member Renuka Chowdhury, who was also on the panel, added to this chorus and thumped the table emphatically.
Anish’s call for Yogita’s ouster “was loudly supported by the members of the community and allies present” at the consultation, stated a press release issued by the organisers.
Queer rights collective and watchdog YesWeExistIndia also called for Yogita’s resignation. Yogita must “issue a public apology for humiliating our representatives and our community or resign…” YesWeExist commented on an Instagram post. “This is unacceptable!”
The two NCTP members interviewed by queerbeat opted for different approaches. “I want investigation on the Bill—I have no grudges against any government officials,” Abhina said. “I am more worried for my community people,” she added. Kalki echoed the demand for Yogita’s ouster. Yogita “should resign or she should apologise,” she told queerbeat.
The amendments threaten to “wash out” years of hard work that had gone into securing trans rights in India, Kalki added. But her resolve remains unshaken. “I am not giving up; I have no record of giving up.”