Transgender Amendment Act: PIL Before Supreme Court Flags Law’s Impact On Biological Women

The Supreme Court has issued notice on a petition by Women's Declaration International India (WDII) raising concerns over the impact of the Transgender Amendment Act 2026 on statutory protections and benefits earmarked for women.

A CJI Surya Kant led bench has sought the Centre’s response on the plea while tagging it with similar pending matters.

The petition argues the amendment could affect women's reservations, gender-based prison accommodation arrangements, participation in sporting competitions and safeguards available to women during criminal investigations.

Court while hearing the petition on Wednesday told Senior Advocate Amit Sibal that petitions were already pending before it on the validity of the 2026 amendment to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act.

"Our concern is the impact on constitutional and statutory benefits exclusive to biological females. Those protections must remain and cannot be interfered with. Transgender persons must have equal rights and privileges, but the question is whether those rights can encroach upon protections reserved for biological women,” Sibal told the bench in response.

Sibal maintained the petition was not a repetition of the pending challenges and raised a separate cause concerning women’s rights.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said the government was preparing its response in the connected batch of cases and would address the concerns raised in the present petition as well.

The Supreme Court is already seized of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026.

One of the petitions before court challenges the constitutional validity of the proviso to Section 2(k) of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. The proviso to Section 2(k) of the Act provides that the term "transgender person" does not include, and has never included, persons with different sexual orientations and self-perceived sexual identities. The petition has been filed by Ankani Biswas, a transgender advocate practicing before the Calcutta High Court.

Filed under Article 32 of the Constitution, another petition by Laxmi Narayan Tripathi argues that the amendment inflicts “irreparable constitutional injury” by violating rights under Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21. It raises a core constitutional question: whether the State can legally define a person’s gender identity in place of their self-perception.

Tripathi's petition contends that the new provision replaces the earlier self-identification standard with a restrictive framework based on biological conditions and socio-cultural categories. According to the plea, this shift effectively excludes individuals who do not fall within specified categories such as hijra or intersex persons, thereby “erasing” a large section of the transgender community.

The petition also criticises a provision that includes within the definition persons allegedly forced into transgender identity through coercive practices, arguing that it wrongly conflates victims of abuse with individuals who identify as transgender. This, the petition states, is both stigmatizing and constitutionally untenable. A key grievance is the deletion of the statutory recognition of the right to “self-perceived gender identity,” which was explicitly incorporated in the 2019 law following the NALSA ruling.