UN Human Rights Office Says India's Changed Transgender Law Risks Hard-Won Rights
New Delhi: The United Nations Human Rights office on Thursday (April 2) denounced the swift passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, saying it risks “setting back hard won rights” of the transgender people in India. “We regret the fast passage of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, without adequate stakeholder consultation. The amendments risk setting back hard-won rights of transgender people, replacing self-identification with mandatory medical verification processes,” the international body stated in a post on X.
Noting that India has been a pioneer for rights of transgender and gender-diverse people, the UN said that the Bill “will have far-reaching impacts on right to privacy & risk marginalisation of transgender people”.
#India: We regret fast passage of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, without adequate stakeholder consultation. The amendments risk setting back hard-won rights of transgender people, replacing self-identification with mandatory medical verification…
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) April 2, 2026
The statement comes days after President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Bill on March 30, amid widespread protests and condemnation from across the country. According to the law ministry’s gazette notification, the amended bill – now an Act – came into effect almost immediately.
Earlier on March 31, Amnesty International condemned the president’s assent to the Bill saying it “denies transgender and gender diverse people the right to self-identify”. and “is a serious setback for human rights in India”.
Aakar Patel, the organisation’s India head, said, “This regressive law dilutes safeguards and deepens state intrusion into the lives of transgender people.”
Meanwhile, the Rajasthan high court, while hearing a separate matter on horizontal reservation for transgender persons in the state, also underscored that the right to self-identify one’s gender is a matter “of right”, cautioning that the Modi government’s Bill risks reducing it to a “contingent, state-mediated entitlement”.
Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha passed the Bill by voice vote after minimal discussion, dismissing opposition MPs who slammed the government’s haste and demanded the Bill be referred to a select committee.
Opposition MPs had criticised the Bill for taking away the right to self-determination of identity, granted by the 2014 NALSA judgement and part of the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act.
The 2026 Act seeks to redefine the term transgender as “a person having such socio-cultural identities as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta or eunuch”, or a person with specific “intersex variations”, or “a person who, at birth, has a congenital variation” in sex characteristics as compared to male or female development in their “primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomal patterns, gonadal development, endogenous hormone production or response or such other medical conditions”.
It controversially mandates that a transgender person "shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities".
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