New Delhi, April 1 An amendment bill that provides graded punishment for causing bodily harm to transgender persons has received the assent of President Draupadi Murmu.
Opposition MPs had criticized the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, for excluding gay and lesbian individuals from its scope.
An authority has been established to determine whether a person is transgender, a provision that also drew criticism 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 stated that the objective is to protect transgender persons, the opposition criticized 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 provide a precise definition of the term "transgender" and exclude "different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities" from the scope of the proposed law.
It states 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, objective, 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.