The passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday has been accompanied by a familiar, almost predictable. justification: protection.

The bill will offer protection for “genuine” beneficiaries of state welfare programmes for transgender persons, supporters say, and protection against these schemes being misused by those falsely claiming transgender identity.

Articulating this logic, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Medha Kulkarni said in the Rajya Sabha that the amendments would ensure that benefits reach the deserving people in a proper manner. “She said there is a need for a law that brings justice to real transgender individuals and punishes fake ones,” All India Radio reported.

To ensure that benefits reach the “right people”, supporters say, the bill removes the right to self-perceived gender identity. It makes verification by medical and bureaucratic boards mandatory for obtaining a transgender certificate.

The spectre of “fraudulent claimants” is being used to legitimise additional layers of procedural control.

But it isn’t clear whom the government believes it is preventing misuse by.

For a community that faces exclusion from housing, employment, healthcare, and even the most elementary forms of social recognition, the suggestion that transgender identity has suddenly emerged as a lucrative site of opportunistic fraud is bizarre.

Are there really self-serving individuals who might decide to declare themselves transgender and voluntarily assume stigma and social ostracism to access often inconsistently provided welfare provisions?

Parliament passes Transgender Persons (Amendment) Bill, 2026. The law redefines “transgender” to exclude self-perceived identities and tightens certification via medical boards, while introducing stricter penalties for forced identity and exploitation. pic.twitter.com/cMMvySraVJ— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) March 25, 2026

Parliament passes Transgender Persons (Amendment) Bill, 2026. The law redefines “transgender” to exclude self-perceived identities and tightens certification via medical boards, while introducing stricter penalties for forced identity and exploitation. pic.twitter.com/cMMvySraVJ

The claim of misuse recasts transgender persons as objects of suspicion instead of citizens with rights. The burden is no longer on the state to ensure inclusion, but on individuals to prove authenticity.

Identity, recognised by the Supreme Court in NALSA v Union of India in 2014 as intrinsic to personal autonomy, is now reduced to a claim to be verified, examined, and, if necessary, denied.

By removing self-identification and introducing mandatory medical and bureaucratic certification, the law effectively narrows the category of who counts as a transgender person. It excludes trans men, trans women, and non-binary persons in favour of a limited list of identities tied to socio-cultural and medical categories.

A law ostensibly designed to prevent fraud has ended up institutionalising an insidious form of misrepresentation by limiting lived identities.

The strategic invocation of misuse and protection deftly avoids the uncomfortable conversation about structural neglect of the trans community. It shifts attention away from inadequate welfare delivery and transforms a question of rights into a question of eligibility.

This isn’t an amendment—it’s erasureThe transgender rights amendment bill strips away the right to self-identify and pushes trans, non-binary, and intersex people back by decades, @mridulasee writes of the panic & fearSubscribe to read our edit notes https://t.co/2XjoqhV8Hg pic.twitter.com/piUjNuLD6R— Article 14 (@Article14live) March 21, 2026

This isn’t an amendment—it’s erasureThe transgender rights amendment bill strips away the right to self-identify and pushes trans, non-binary, and intersex people back by decades, @mridulasee writes of the panic & fearSubscribe to read our edit notes https://t.co/2XjoqhV8Hg pic.twitter.com/piUjNuLD6R

The disappointment is not merely with the content of the bill, but with the impoverished imagination it reveals. In 2026, after decades of activism, jurisprudence, and scholarship, transgender identity continues to be approached through the lenses of suspicion and control.

The bill makes restrictive categories appear reasonable. It says that protection requires verification and that recognition must be earned through compliance.

However, what is truly in need of protection is the integrity of welfare delivery.

Swarupa Deb is a senior fellow at the Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru.

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