Amended bill on rights of transgender persons gets President’s assent

Droupadi Murmu approved the Transgender Persons Amendment Bill, 2026, introducing graded punishment for harm against transgender persons while excluding gays and lesbians. The move drew opposition criticism over identity rights and provisions requiring official certification of transgender status

New Delhi: An amendment bill which provides graded punishment for bodily harm to transgender persons has received the assent of President Draupadi Murmu.

Opposition MPs had slammed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, for excluding gays and lesbians from its ambit.

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An authority has been established to determine whether a person is transgender, a provision that also faced backlash from the opposition.

According to a law ministry notification dated March 30, the amended law will come into effect on a date appointed by the Central Government through a notification in the official gazette.

During debates in both Houses of Parliament, while the government said the objective is to protect transgender persons, the opposition slammed the proposed legislation for taking away the right to self-determination of identity, such as gay and lesbian individuals, and demanded that it be sent to a standing committee for proper consultations.

The bill seeks to give a precise definition of the term “transgender” and exclude “different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities” from the ambit of the proposed law.

It underlines that a transgender person “shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities.” “The intent, object and purpose of the Act is and was to protect a specified class of persons socially and culturally known as transgender people who face societal discrimination of an extreme and oppressive nature.

“The purpose was and is not to protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities,” the bill says.