Jamshedpur: The transgender community on Monday staged a protest outside deputy collector’s office as part of their ongoing opposition to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act 2026.Claiming that the new Act has changed the definition of the transgenders, they claimed that the law has taken away their fundamental right to self-determination of the gender.“The Act grants state-appointed medical experts the power to determine whether a trans persons’ identity is legally valid. This is against the demands of the decades-long transgender movement in India,” said Amarjeet Singh, founder of the NGO Utthaan Community Based Organization (CBO) which works for the transgenders’ cause.Stating that the amended law violates the 2014 NALSA judgement of the Supreme Court, Singh said that making identity conditional is not a procedural change but exclusion in practice.Organisation member Arpit said that the hard-won rights of the transgenders people of the country have suffered a major reversal with the enactment of the new law.“This law is against the International Human Rights standards which provide for self-declared identity to form the basis for access to social security measures, benefits and entitlements,” Arpit said.He said that in the 2011 census, 4,87,803 individuals were recognised as third gender and so far, only 32,500 have identity cards which is essential for access to the govt welfare schemes.“The amended law will pose fresh obstacles in the identification of the third gender as none would like a medical examination for determining the trans gender,” said Priyanka.
