It is the question the state is asking us once again. Honestly? I am not even surprised anymore by both houses of parliament passing the Transgender Persons Amendment Bill 2026. I am just tired. We are so bone-crushingly tired of this endless pattern of validation. We are exhausted from constantly having to prove our humanity to a system that refuses to see us.
Please, save us from our saviours. They want to save us from what exactly? From ourselves? From our own truth? From the safe havens and chosen families we built when the world turned its back on us?
I genuinely do not understand who this will benefit. Why did they even bring it? Was it some god who came into their dreams and told them to make this bill to protect us? But protect us from what? Who is this imaginary attacker? Who is imagining this? Also, what are they smoking in the parliament? Hopefully, it’s some really potent stuff, because you need to be on a completely different trip to draft something this disconnected from reality.
Don`t get lost in the dense legal language or the slick politician-speak surrounding this bill. The core issue is terrifyingly simple: do you get to decide who you are, or does a district magistrate get to decide?
When an identity such as ours becomes approval-based, everything else in our lives becomes conditional. If the state holds the power to validate your very existence, that conditionality will show up everywhere. It will show up in education when a principal demands to see your “certificate”. It will show up in employment when HR departments hide behind state mandates. It will show up in your neighbourhood when a house owner refuses to rent to you because your paperwork doesn`t match their narrow worldview. It criminalises our very identity, turning our daily survival into an illegal act.
The harsh reality of this country is that the economic and English-speaking belt will somehow survive this. Privilege, capital, and a stronghold on the English language act as a massive shock absorber. But what happens to a trans man in rural India? What happens to an intersex child whose irreversible medical decisions are being made by frightened parents and state machinery before they can even speak?
This bill is a masterclass in grounds for exclusion, particularly for trans men. While trans women have historically had socio-cultural identities in India—flawed and marginalised as those societal perceptions may be, they at least offer a sliver of visibility—trans men are completely invisible in this legislation. With the looming retrospective clauses, it is as if trans men simply do not exist in the eyes of the law.
Where do they go now? How will they pursue their transitions?
Will doctors, fearful of state blowback, even agree to perform top surgeries or administer hormone therapy on trans men without state-sanctioned papers? And if chosen families step in to help these men escape violently patriarchal homes, will these supporters be criminalised too under the draconian Section 18?
Right now, the trans community is standing in front of a legislative firing squad
And we need to free the medical boards. We must free the doctors who are being tasked by the state with doing deeply unscientific, humiliating work. You cannot measure a soul with a stethoscope. You cannot validate a person`s gender by forcing them to strip down for a bureaucratic tribunal. It is a gross violation of bodily autonomy and medical ethics.
This isn`t just about abstract legal theories. This is about how dignity is understood and upheld in a democracy. Right now, we are staring down a severe mental health crisis. The cost of this state-sponsored besharmi is human life. Suicide cases within the community are increasing. Young queer and trans people are killing themselves because they look at their government and see absolutely no way out. Make no mistake: the lawmakers who pushed this bill through both houses have blood on their hands. We desperately need leaders who have a spine of their own, not just people who are happy being puppets nodding along to whatever discriminatory script they are handed.
The record of history is so important here. We have fought this fight before. We lived through the joy of the Delhi High Court verdict in 2009, the crushing defeat by the Supreme Court in 2013, and our glorious, defiant victory in 2018. If history teaches us anything, it is that rights have to be fought for; they can never, ever be assumed. Freedom is not a constant.
Which brings me to my most important point: We need to be together. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender folks—we all have to stand united. You don`t need to like my lipstick colour. You don`t need to agree with my political leanings or, simply, my non-vegetarianism. We can have our differences. But right now, the state doesn`t care about our internal debates; it only cares about erasing us all.
On a lighter note, amidst all this dystopia, I read a tweet today that perfectly captured the sheer absurdity of the government trying to police our identities: “Jis desh ka pradhaan mantri non-biological hai, us desh ka yuva non-binary kyun nahin ho sakta?”
So what can you do? When the state tries to erase you, your greatest weapon is your voice and your franchise. Vote. Vote, vote, and vote. Vote out the apathy. Vote out the bigotry. Vote the ones who did this out of power.
And please, don`t ask, “If not the ones in power, who?” Because the answer is anybody. Anybody who spoke fearlessly for us, who took the time to understand us, can be in power. Anyone is better than them. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines while our dignity is debated in parliament by people who do not know us.
We are bruised, and we are tired, but we are still standing. And we will not let them write us out of our own country.
