Guest post by SVATI P SHAH

On October 8, 2026, a group called ‘Women’s Declaration International India’ filed a PIL in the Indian Supreme Court which calls for further narrowing transgender legal rights, as afforded in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 (‘Transgender Act’). The PIL takes courage from the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 (‘Amendment Act), which removes the right of self-attested gender (as was legally affirmed in Transgender Act) and requires medical ‘evidence’ of gender identity that does not conform to sex assigned at birth. The October 8 PIL builds on language in the Amendment Act to demand the legal enshrinement, ‘protection’ of ‘biological’ women. Specific ‘prayers’ include that the Court declare ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ as legally distinct, declaring that Section 7/18 of the Transgender Act, which allows for administrative orders to change  gender on official documents like Aadhaar, be defined as unconstitutional, specifically excluding transgender people from access to welfare schemes with gendered quotas, overruling transgender legal recognition and the right to benefits guaranteed in the 2014 NALSA judgement, and stripping away the protection from emotional and verbal abuse by declaring a portion of Section 18(d) of the 2019 Transgender Act as unconstitutional. The PIL essentially frames transgender rights as an encroachment of the rights of women, where women are defined with respect to an extremely partial and misunderstood use of the term ‘biology.’ Continue reading Return of the Radical Feminist Saviours: Svati P Shah →