Hyderabad: The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 suggests setting up a screening committee comprising a medical doctor who would determine the gender of a person.
Legal experts and observers say this provision violates human rights and the right of self determination of gender identity and expression of a transgender.
The Bill also includes persons with intersex variations under the transgender umbrella, which is unscientific and exclude a large majority of transgenders.
“The involvement of a chief medical officer and other medical professionals to determine whether one is a transgender or not is a human rights violations. Gender identity is not a medical condition or situation that needs a doctor’s clean chit. The trans community is already subjected to such violations by inexperienced medical professionals and enforcement agencies, wherein they have been subjected to intrusive body searches, stripping, feeling up of private parts,” said Ms Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli, a student of Public Policy at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, adding that this provision contradicted the Supreme Court’s order in the Nalsa verdict. She said the Bill would create a system of gatekeepers and policing, which would lead to rise of a certificate mafia.
Experts say the Bill has a narrow definition for a transgender and is seriously flawed and derogatory. The Bill states a transgender person is one who is “neither wholly female, nor wholly male, or a combination of female or male”.
Prominent lawyer and former public prosecutor B.T. Venkatesh of Reach Law said that limiting the legislation to such narrow terms meant that the government was deciding who could or couldn’t be identified as a transgender.
