The Global Rise of Anti-Gender Politics
Across the world, gender minorities are being turned into political battlegrounds.
In the United States, a surge of anti-trans legislation has forced many trans people to consider leaving their home states. A 2022 survey of over 92,000 trans people found that nearly half had considered moving because of anti-trans laws, with thousands already migrating in search of safety. Trans people are increasingly described as “political refugees” fleeing hostile jurisdictions.
At the same time, laws targeting queer expression are multiplying. Several U.S. states have introduced legislation restricting drag performances and policing gender non-conforming expression in public spaces. These laws are not just symbolic. They create a climate where harassment, discrimination, and violence become easier to justify.
This is the architecture of gender authoritarianism: rights are framed as threats, identities as “ideology,” and legal protections become bargaining chips in political struggles.
From NALSA to the 2019 Act: A Promise Slowly Eroded
India is not immune to this global shift. Anti-gender rhetoric in India is closely tied to far-right nationalism, which celebrates rigid patriarchal norms as part of an imagined “golden past.” Within this framework, gender diversity is portrayed as a deviation rather than a lived reality. And now, that ideology is entering law.
In 2014, the Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark judgment in NALSA vs Union of India, recognising transgender persons as a third gender and affirming that self-determination of gender identity is a fundamental right under the Constitution.
For many in the community, it was a historic vindication of centuries of resistance against invisibilisation and violence. Soon after, MP Tiruchi Siva introduced the Transgender Rights Bill (2014) as a private member’s bill. Passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2015, it carried the promise that the Supreme Court’s recognition would translate into meaningful legislation.
But the bills that followed steadily diluted that promise. Drafts introduced in 2016 and 2018 were widely criticised by activists for undermining the principle of self-identification and introducing bureaucratic barriers to recognising gender identity. The 2018 bill still passed the Lok Sabha, though it eventually lapsed.
Then came the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, pushed through despite sustained protests from the community. From weak anti-discrimination provisions to intrusive certification processes and inadequate penalties for violence, the Act already fell far short of the constitutional vision laid down in NALSA. Yet even that limited recognition is now under threat.
The 2026 Amendment: Erasing Self-Identification
On March 13, 2026, the Union government introduced the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 in Parliament. The amendment proposes a radical shift.
It removes the principle that self-perceived gender identity can form the basis for recognition under the law. Instead, it restricts the definition of “transgender person” to specific socio-cultural identities such as hijra, kinner, aravani, jogta and eunuch, along with people with intersex variations.
In doing so, the amendment effectively excludes large sections of the trans community. Trans men and trans-masculine people disappear from the law. Gender-diverse people who do not belong to recognised cultural communities are excluded. And by collapsing transgender identities into biological categories, the amendment reverses the constitutional principle that gender identity is rooted in personal autonomy, not anatomy.
Ironically, this move also risks misrepresenting and further marginalising intersex people, whose distinct medical and social realities are being folded into a narrow legal category. Twelve years after the Supreme Court affirmed that gender identity is a matter of self-determination, the state is attempting to take that right away. Rights that are granted through law can also be dismantled through law. And this amendment is a stark reminder of how fragile those rights can be.
