The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2019 as well as the legislation has met with vociferous protests from the transgender community, after being hurriedly passed with 27 amendments by a voice note amidst noisy protests on August 5, 2019. Grace Banu, founder of the Trans Right Now Collective and an activist from Tamil Nadu, stated that it was a ‘black day for us’ and ‘Gender Justice Murder Day’ within an hour of the passing of the regressive bill. According to Grace, the community had been opposing the bill since it was made public in 2016 and believes that it is meant to kill the transgender people. It is no more than a white paper that brings no positive change in the lives of the minority. In this article, we will talk about the bill,, its pros and cons and the transgender community thinks about it.
Notion of Gender Self-Identification Has Been Denied and Destroyed
According to the 2019 bill, a person has a right to choose to be identified as a man, woman or transgender person, despite hormonal therapy and sex reassignment surgeries. One has to go through a district screening committee to be certified as a transgender and has to undergo surgery to confirm their gender and obtain a revised certificate. The bill has no provisions for an appeal or review by the district magistrate in case then an individual is denied the certificate.
According to the NALSA Judgment of 2014, one has a right to self-identification of gender. So, even though the SC’s judgment allows you to self-identify and has removed the term ‘screening tests’, but these procedures of hormonal treatment and surgeries are in direct contraction of it. The 27 amendments are mere ‘cosmetic proofreading changes’ as the suggestions made by the transgender community in the past two years during meetings with Standing Committee and other Parliamentarians have not even been taken into consideration.
Bill Amends the Definition of Transgender
According to the original definition of transgender in the bill, they are “neither wholly female nor wholly male; or a combination of female or male; or neither female nor male; and whose sense of gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at the time of birth, and includes trans men and trans women, persons with intersex variations and gender-queers.”
This definition is highly problematic but the new one is no closer to anything perfect, even after outrage from the LGBT+ community and allies. As per the amended definition, they are “a person whose gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at birth and includes trans-man or trans-woman (whether or not such person has undergone Sex Reassignment Surgery or hormone therapy or laser therapy or such other therapy), person with intersex variations, gender- queer and person having such socio-cultural identities as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta.”
As pointed out by Lawyers Collective, this new definition is prone to ambiguous and illiberal interpretation and should have be along the lines of someone whose sense of gender does not match with the one assigned during birth. This bill also assumes incorrectly that anyone with intersex variations has to be transgender person.
Criminalization of Begging and Prescription of a Jail Term
In section 19 of the Bill, under Offenses and Penalties (Chapter VIII), anyone compelling a transgender person to indulge in bonded or forced labor, will be punished with fine and imprisonment of 6 months to 2 years. However, one needs to take into consideration that criminalizing begging is damaging and cruel because most transgender people in the country resort to it due to lack of employment opportunities. Since no meaningful alternatives or avenues have been provided by the bill to help them sustain, one can say that the bill has unfairly taken away whatever little opportunities and means of livelihood almost 90% of the community had.
Equality through Reservation is not extended
One of the major demands by the community was reservation/ affirmative action in employment, politics and education and was clearly asked by the Central and State governments in the NALSA judgment. According to Gee Imaan Semmalar, an activist from Sampoorna India, there is no mention of reservation in the government’s Bill. According to NALSA judgment, they need to consider the community as a socially and economically underprivileged minority but no objection has been given to the bill by National Backward Classes Commission. There is a clause in the bill for rescue, protection and rehabilitation of the transgender persons but more than that, they need equity through reservation.
Legal Gap of Rape and Assault of Transgender People Unfilled
The new bill does not lay out any much-needed provisions to deal with the rampant issue of sexual violence against transgender people. It only mentions that anyone who harms or endangers their lives will be punished with imprisonment and fine. The bill merely sees sexual abuse against them as a ‘petty crime’. Raping a trans-person is now a crime punishable by lesser sentence than in instances of when a woman is raped.
In Conclusion
Gender identity is a deeply and intensely personal experience. The world of gender is still divided into ‘male’ and ‘female’ in many segments of our society and is believed to be unchangeable. However, it is necessary to understand that gender can escape this binary altogether because it is bound to be subjective and fluid. To introduce a spirit of measured and reflective deliberation in the legislative process of this bill, the Rajya Sabha now needs to take up the task to listen to the voices of the community and amend the Transgender Persons Bill of 2019 in a manner that is inclusive of dignity, autonomy and equality.
Hi. My name is Apoorva Vardhan. I am an undergraduate student of economics at the University of Delhi. I am very interested in writing as well as debating. I am also very passionate about numbers and how markets work. As an economics major, I plan to pursue an advanced degree and become an economic consultant to conduct research and build strategies to solve economic issues and to interpret markets. Lastly, I am a firm believer of personal accountability as well as commitment and I enjoy creating and managing original compelling work.
Comments
Post a Comment