Abstract

In 2019, India passed a new legislation on transgender person’s rights pursuant to a judgment by its highest judiciary in 2014. The judgment and the subsequent legislation have legally recognised transgender community person or sexual minority individual as ‘third gender’. The paper investigates how transgender persons who were criminalised since the passage of the law during British era have lead to marginalising those individuals leading to exclusion for various welfare schemes and policies. The impact of the 2014 judgment passed by the Indian Supreme Court has accorded legal recognition to persons from diverse gender identity in India. The legislation passed in 2019 on the rights of transgender persons is a rights-based move in the right direction. There is lack of literature connecting the law passed during British era having an impact on social exclusion of the transgender persons. However, the plain interpretation of the law reveals the historical injustice meted out to transgender person community when they were categorised as criminal communities. After the passage of the 2019 legislation, it is evidentiary of how transgender community persons have occupied various areas of workspace, paving the way for restructuring gendered spaces. The legislation envisages transformation through education and employment or mainstreaming of the said persons. However, familial and other private rights, such as right to succession, etc. are the lacunas which exist in the legislation. The paper argues the need to have an anti-discrimination policy as a norm in workplace to be introduced, either as an amendment to the existing legislation or as a public policy guideline.

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