The Lok Sabha today i.e., December 17, 2018, passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016, that provides for protection of rights of transgender persons by providing them a separate identity.
Seeking passage of the Bill, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot said the Bill was important in view of the rights of the transgenders and urged the members to pass it.
The Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment after it was introduced in the Lok Sabha in August 2016.
Gehlot said that as many as 27 suggestions made by the standing committee were accepted in the Bill amid protests by the Congress, AIADMK and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) members on different issues.
According to the 2011 Census, the number of persons who do not identify as "male" or "female" but as "other" stands at 4,87,803 -- 0.04 per cent of the total population.
This "other" category stands for transgender persons.
The Supreme Court on September 6, 2018, in the case of Navtej Singh Johar & Ors. v. Union of India thr. Secretary Ministry of Law and Justice had decriminalized homosexuality in India by stating that "Section 377 IPC to the extent that it criminalises consensual sex between two adults is arbitrary, irrational and hence liable to be partially struck down."
