India is a nation of mega-diversity with people coming from innumerable cultures and backgrounds. That makes the scrupulous work of legislation even more difficult, especially when it comes to catering to the needs of marginalized communities. Unfortunately, the recent Transgender Protection Bill falls into the set of acts and bills where lawmakers have failed to understand the needs of the majorly oppressed community and instead have repressed them further.
Where the initially passed NALSA(Nation Legal Services Authority) judgment, that declared transgender people to be a third gender, had taken a step forward for the betterment of the transgender community, this new bill has taken 2 steps backward by dehumanizing the people. The NALSA bill granted the community fundamental rights according to the constitution of India. The Transgender Protection Bill of 2019 instead has declared rules such as: to get the transgender certificate, a person needs to go through a screening committee which comprises of not just a medical officer, but also a district magistrate. The screening involves a physical examination, leaving people open to incidences of groping and harrowing. On top of this, physical/sexual assault on a transgender is less punishable(0.5-2years) than the sentence for an offense on a cis-person. The new trans protection bill also doesn’t address reservations in education and employment as NALSA had. Moreover, the bill doesn’t recognize "family of choice". According to the experiences of various people from the trans-community, their native families have been the biggest oppressors. Here the law passed states that in the case that the family isn’t able to take care of the trans-child, the government will keep the child in a rehabilitation center. Rather than counseling the family, it victimizes the poor trans-child. Rehabilitation centers in this case would hardly work as the government, and the society at large is trans-phobic.
It is to be noted that this lack of empathy from the Lok Sabha could be a result of no trans-member representation in the parliament. At the very least, lawmakers should have involved the community being affected in the decision-making process.