Terminology Issues around the “Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act” (2019) in India
Between the Indian Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling recognizing a “third gender” and the implementation of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in 2019, numerous demonstrations took place across the country. The aim was to protest certain legislative measures in the pipeline. For the first time, the people concerned were able to express themselves through numerous debates about their rights as citizens and about the gender diversity they embody. The term transgender, retained in the law, does not allow for all contexts, languages, and regional differences to be expressed. Based on a portrait of two transgender activists and an ethnography of the vernacular terminology used in Assam and Manipur, two regions little known in studies of sexual and gender minorities in India, I examine the different levels of demands and influences involved in the process of constructing the identity of transgender people.