Invisible in Law: Transgender Persons, Adoption, and Inheritance in India

Indian family and succession law has, for generations, been built upon a binary understanding of gender. The result is a legal architecture that renders transgender persons structurally invisible — unable to adopt, uncertain in their inheritance rights, and compelled either to conform to categories that do not reflect their identity or to forgo legal recognition altogether. This paper examines the position of transgender persons within adoption and inheritance regimes in India, analysing the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, the Hindu Succession Act 1956, the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937, and the Indian Succession Act 1925. Drawing on the constitutional foundations established in National Legal Services Authority v Union of India (2014) and the doctrinal developments that followed, the paper argues that the continued reliance on binary gender structures undermines the constitutional guarantees of equality and dignity embedded in Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21. It further contends that judicial reading-in of transgender persons into male or female categories, while preferable to outright exclusion, is neither a principled nor a durable solution. Substantive equality demands gender-neutral legislative reform.