A petition filed by the Women’s Declaration International’s India chapter in the Supreme Court has invited censure from feminist organisations and caused consternation within sections of the transgender community for its central prayers, which include seeking the nullification of the legal right to self-identify gender granted by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and Others v Union of India judgement of the Supreme Court, and a directive that all benefits, protections and entitlements available specifically to women are denied to transgender persons, irrespective of their self identification and/or medical intervention.
“The petition propagates a false idea that “recognition of rights of transgender persons discriminates against cis-gender women and dilutes their rights and liberties”, the statement contended. “The petition is asking the Supreme Court to undo the little protection available to transgender persons and erase their identity… [this] makes them even more vulnerable to discrimination and violence,” the statement contended.
Kaushik, who faced gender-based discrimination in two schools where she had found employment, also spoke out against the WDI petition which made a reference to her case. It also formed a committee under retired high court justice Asha Menon to study the options for livelihood and employment trans persons currently have. The school in question never made such an argument, nor did the Supreme Court give such a finding.
In October 2025, a two-judge bench of the court had ruled in the landmark Jane Kaushik v Union of India that the Union and the states had positive obligations to prevent discrimination against transgender persons. In 2014, a handful of transgender persons including Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and the NALSA petitioned the Supreme Court claiming widespread discrimination, social stigma and violence.
The WDI India petition claims that the conflation of gender identity and biological sex “compels all persons to express belief in gender identities or recognise biological males as “women”, in violation of the freedom of speech and expression. I faced transphobic abuse from other staff and students of the schools against which I had filed a petition, but the WDII petition has effectively rewritten my experience to create an artificial clash between the rights of transwomen and cisgender women,” Kaushik said. The court granted legal recognition to what it termed the “third gender” and called self-identification of gender a fundamental right.
“The petition deliberately mischaracterises the facts before the Supreme Court in my case, as it portrays that I experienced body shaming and abuse on account of the discomfort of other residents of a women’s hostel of one of the schools the case was against. The top court is hearing a clutch of petitions seeking redressal against the amendments made to the Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act earlier this year.
