Recognition, citizenship and rights: the dilemma of India’s gender non-conforming communities in the light of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act

ABSTRACT

Recognition and citizenship issues play pivotal roles in understanding the complex interaction between different forms of inequalities. Citizenship should be treated as a practice intimately linked with individuals’ identities and rights, their sense of belonging and their actual nature of participation in the different spheres of their life. Exclusion is not just deprivation from the more tangible economic and social processes but also denying people their voice and their right to be unique. In this context, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act concerning India’s transgender community lies within the crucial junctures of identity politics and the country’s legal and social structures. This work critically analyses the TG Act and raises few questions on the nature of recognition given to transgender individuals. Does a transgender person get citizenship that guarantees representation and equality? To what extent does the new Act do justice to the transgender community in living as a member of the society and not just as a product of ‘othering’? The paper concludes that recognition is not just for citizenship and identity rights – it is the right to be different but equal.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• intersectionality
• jurisprudence
• transgender
• exclusion

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author received no grant for this research paper.

Notes on contributors

Ankita Chakrabarti

Ankita Chakrabarti I am a senior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. My thesis title is ‘ Access to primary healthcare among the transfeminine population in West Bengal, India.’ I did my graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. My broad research interests include, gender relation, family demography, public health and mixed methods research methodologies. I have published few articles in various reputed, national and international journals regarding women autonomy and status. I actively write in various national magazines on current relevant issues regarding the transgender population in India. I have received many international grants for attending conferences and workshops. I am Research Convenor at the Civilian Welfare Foundation, a non-profit organisation in Kolkata, working on alternative education, disability and gender. I am also a member of the State Planning Commission of Chhattisgarh, working on ‘Rehabilitation of the third gender’.

Bhaswati Das

Bhaswati Das is Faculty in Population Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India. Her area of interest includes study of population in the context of development. Her major area of thrust is wellbeing, migration, gender and reproductive health. She has so far 30 publications published in leading journals on population and development issues. Currently, she is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Health & Population: Perspectives and Issues (HPPI) of the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, GoI. So far, 25 students have been awarded Ph.D degrees under her supervision. Bhaswati’s current research projects are as follows: Gendered Ageing in India. Gender Atlas of India, Choice of Destination by the Migrants from Bangladesh and Consequence of Male-selective Migration from Rural West Bengal.