It took me decades to find myself. The trans bill erases me in one sweep

I don’t write about myself. Not in public, and rarely, if ever, in private. The proposed amendment to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, presented by Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Virendra Kumar in Lok Sabha on March 13 forces my hand, and yet, I find a thrilling freedom in finally coming out and staking a claim to who I am.

I hope that talking about it will throw more light on why self-determination is a long process that requires patience, not more erasure, and also light the way for others who find their way to transgender identities as adults.

The bill solidifies an argument that was made in the run-up to the passing of the Act in 2019 that transgender people could only belong to traditional transgender groups: hijras, kinnars, jogtas, aravanis and others. While the Act as it was passed aligned itself with the Supreme Court’s NALSA judgement of 2014 and allowed for trans people to identify themselves, the definition proposed by Bill No 79 of 2026 would have trans women outside those traditional groups, trans men, non-binary people, and people of other gender identities not be included in the protections of the act.

The bill explicitly aims to delete the separate category for intersex people in the 2019 Act, and to list them under the trans umbrella. This erases the separate and unique struggle intersex people have had for decades for their own concerns – including, for instance, the fight against forced gender realignment surgeries done at young ages to attempt to fit them into the binary.

Collapsing the two identities perpetuates stereotypes about both trans and intersex communities. The basic demand of trans groups for horizontal reservation seems more distant, though it will be ever more urgent as oppressed caste trans individuals lead the fight for simply being represented fairly. The bill drives a wedge into cross-community solidarity and divides us so that we do not organise and assert ourselves or live our lives to their fullest potentials.

I have known since I was a child that I was different, that I was not quite a girl, yet nowhere like a boy, either. My puberty was different – too much, too skewed towards an indefinite, in-between gendered appearance. It did not soften me and at times, it stole my childhood. For years, I balanced anger at myself and fear of the world, always aware that I was not enough of any gender and that I would never fit in. Even amid that rage and confusion, I made choices that affirmed my existence outside the binary of gender. The way I dressed, talked, and moved in the world spoke to how neither gender had a hold on me.

When I became a reporter, I learned to lean into my assigned gender. I played the “young woman who doesn’t know anything” when lulling sources, often cis men, into lowering their guard. I learned to smile and give assurances that I was one of them when speaking to cis women, who in turn embraced me because of my perceived likeness. I was aware, all the time, that I was playing a part. I could have even tried to deceive myself had I not repeatedly asserted in private my confusion at what being a woman even meant, the irritation at being called “sister” by feminist colleagues, the knowledge that the dresses I had begun to wear made me feel awkward and out of place.

In 2015, I wrote to a friend about how I did not feel like a man or a woman, but that I did not know what that made me. That year, when Facebook allowed users to choose their own pronouns, I chose “they/them” hardly knowing what it meant, only knowing that there was a relief in not showing my assigned gender to people. In 2018, I told my therapist jokingly that I had never received the gender memo.

I was electrified when I heard the term non-binary. I had flirted with genderqueer and gender non-conforming, but neither encapsulated my alienation from gender. Finally, here was a term that was political. It saw the gendered binary that I had so long regarded as inevitable, and promised an existence beyond it. It took me years after that to embrace it. I used “they/them” pronouns on anonymous online forums for a year before I started to tell people that I was non-binary, only because I wanted to be certain that I was not taking up space, that I was not falling into a yearning for being seen as queer, without actually being it. I stopped myself from expressing myself in public for years.

It has been four years since I came out and many of the changes that I have made have been low-key. I cut my hair, started to wear shirts, started to surround myself with people like myself. I began to assert that my pronouns are indeed “they/them”. In a moment of anger, I updated them on my website, as this essay too, written in anger, appears on my website, marking a coming out of several stages. I also made myself smaller. I withdrew from people who knew me, afraid that they would judge me. Being in public became that much harder when, as an experiment in finding freedom, I began to grow a beard. It was matched by the euphoria of being seen as someone different – neither woman nor man – someone who could pass seamlessly through security queues meant for men and for women.

The proposed amendments disparagingly state that the Act is not meant for the protection of people who identify their own gender. The bill says that it “shall not include, nor shall ever have been so included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities”.

Disturbingly, it aims to criminalise people who support and affirm trans people, threatening them with imprisonment and fines. I have the privilege of caste and class to return to my small life in the closet. There are so many people for whom this is not the case. But silence has corroded me. Speaking up is not a choice. It is necessary if I am to survive.

I am a journalist. I am non-binary. I am transgender. The years of suppression have led me to a deep alienation from my body. I do not know if any intervention, medical or otherwise, will surmount this. It has taken me decades to get to this acceptance. I had hoped that I might yet have more time.

Now, the government might insert itself as an intermediary for any step that I might want to take, adding itself to the double takes and rejection that I already experience in plenty in the world around me. I have been dismissed by relatives and former friends. Colleagues in the profession scoff at and dismiss gender identities that are not binary. I see the changes in how people I speak to for work respond to me, their suspicion and distrust, where, as someone who once presented as a cis woman, I had once found openness. I know that I have to learn how to report again, while being true to myself.

These concerns pale in front of the reality that even basic self-identification might no longer be recognised if this bill is passed. The scope of prosecution for violence against the community will be shrunk. Layers upon layers of bureaucracy will be added to very personal journeys of medical and legal transition. The violent anti-trans rhetoric of the United Kingdom and the United States will be replicated in India.

My heart breaks for the people further along in their journeys who face the crumbling of their painstakingly built lives. My heart breaks for those who are considering joining in but must now weigh the innate drive to live authentically against the fear of the state.

But trans people are nothing if not stubborn and resilient. How much courage does it take to take on a world that tells you that you are wrong, that your entire conception of your self is immoral and not even worthy of being thought of? In or out of the closet, trans people are more vulnerable to self-harm and suicide, and yet, so many of us fight to survive, wherever we are. We have survived before and we will survive now.

No more lies, no more hiding. I am here and I will not go back. I stand in solidarity and in protest with my transgender, non-binary, and intersex siblings. I demand that this short-sighted, and dehumanising bill be withdrawn in its entirety.

Mridula Chari is an award-winning, independent, non-binary reporter based in Mumbai. This article was first published on their website.

Source: Scroll
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