Supreme Court to Hear Petition Challenging 2026 Transgender Rights Amendment

NEW DELHI: A petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 — likely to come before a CJI-led bench on April 27 — highlights the “complete legislative erasure of trans men and trans masculine identities and other gender-diverse identities from the definition of transgender person”.

Steered by transgender rights activists Manveer Yadav and Vishwanath Maithil — who identify as transmen — the petition states the 2026 amendment law introduces sweeping changes to the 2019 law and is in “complete derogation of principles” laid by SC in its landmark 2014 ‘National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India’ case that recognised “transgender” as an umbrella term encompassing wide and diverse range of identities, including trans men and trans masculine identities, trans women, non-binary persons, genderqueer individuals, and socio-cultural groups including hijras, kinnars, aravanis, and jogtas, and held that the criterion for recognition must be the ‘Psychological Test’, not the ‘Biological Test.’

The two other petitioners are transgender rights activists and trans women Abhina Aher and Vinshi Shahi.

The petitioners said the 2026 law replaces an identity-based, self-determination framework with a categorical list of externally verifiable biological markers and named trans-feminine socio-cultural communities, none of which encompasses trans men.

Highlighting that the Trans Rights Act, 2019, before the amendments, defined “transgender person” to include trans men and trans women irrespective of medical intervention, persons with intersex variations, genderqueer persons, and named socio-cultural communities. Also, it guaranteed the right to self-perceived gender identity.

“Together, this framework operationalised the constitutional mandate of NALSA. The 2026 amendment law systematically dismantles it,” they emphasised.

The petition goes on to cite that the 2026 Amendment Act, firstly, replaces the open, identity-based definition of “transgender person” under the 2019 Act with a categorical and exhaustive list confined to: persons with named socio-cultural identities (kinner, hijra, aravani, jogta, and eunuch); persons with intersex variations defined through biological and chromosomal criteria; and persons forcibly compelled to assume a transgender identity through bodily modification.

“Further, a proviso declares that the definition shall “not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities.”

Besides this, the petitioners express concern as they highlight that “the right to self-perceived gender identity that is constitutionally protected, has been entirely omitted without any legitimate rationale”.

“The combined effect of such an amendment is to strip trans men and trans masculine identities of all statutory recognition and protection,” they add.

“Furthermore, every named socio-cultural community in the definition is, without exception, a trans-feminine community of persons assigned as male at birth. Trans men and trans masculine identities have no equivalent named community formation in India; their structural invisibility is itself a defining feature of their experience,” the petition states.

It is further highlighted that the “legislature’s privileging of community-visible, trans-feminine identities over self-perceived identities is not a neutral classification, it is a prejudice of visibility encoded in statute.”

Raising various issues, the petitioners also draw attention to how the 2026 Amendment Act restructures the certificate regime under the Trans Rights Act 2019, “converting a facilitative, self-declaration-based process into one of administrative adjudication and compulsory State surveillance over gender transition”.

“Under the 2026 Amendment Act, the district magistrate is now required to examine the recommendation of a medical board and, where considered “necessary or desirable,” to seek the assistance of other medical experts before issuing a certificate of identity. This directly reintroduces the Corbett Biological Test expressly rejected in the NALSA case and produces a chilling effect on gender expression,” the petitioners state.

They further highlight a Parliamentary Standing Committee report that cautioned against precisely this kind of “medical gatekeeping” and seek the intervention of the top court to protect the rights of the community, and urge the SC to declare the right to self-perceived gender identity a fundamental right protected under the Constitution of India.

“The medical institutions are mandated to furnish details of any person who has undergone gender-affirming surgery to the district magistrate and the designated authority, without consent, purpose limitation, or data protection safeguard. This violates the right to informational privacy, decisional autonomy, and bodily autonomy under Article 21; breaches doctor-patient confidentiality; conflicts with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023; and creates a state-controlled surveillance architecture over gender transition that is manifestly arbitrary and disproportionate under Article 14,” the petition states.

“The protection that a change in gender shall not affect existing rights and entitlements under the Act has been omitted, removing a critical statutory safeguard and leaving transitioning persons without protection of their entitlements,” it further states.

In this backdrop, the petitioners seek the intervention of the top court to protect the rights of the community and urge the SC to declare the right to self-perceived gender identity a fundamental right protected under the Constitution of India.