A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court has argued that the regulatory regime developed in India on the back of the landmark 2014 National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgement that recognised transgender identity is “grossly discriminatory” against “biological females”.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) issued notices to the Union Ministries of Social Justice and Empowerment, Law, and Health and Family Welfare on the PIL.
WDI India’s petition echoes arguments on gender identity and its recognition in the West, particularly in the United States of America, and in the United Kingdom, where the first half of this decade has seen multiple court decisions ruling that women-only spaces are meant to be reserved for people based on their sex and not their gender identity, and that language like “man”, “woman”, and “sex” in statutory provisions is meant to protect the rights and entitlements available by virtue of “biological sex”.
The Scottish Ministers (2025) and the U.S. Further, this petition’s arguments before the Supreme Court come at a time when India is on its way to giving effect to the 106th Constitutional Amendment, which provides for reserving 33% of Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women. The WDI’s petition has cited the landmark U.K. Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v.
Supreme Court’s 2026 decisions reserving women’s sports for “biological females” to make its case. This is also coming at the heels of the Union Government amending the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act earlier this year to redefine “transgender” persons based purely on physiological characteristics and removing a provision guaranteeing the right to “self-perceived gender identity”. And even as the 2026 amendments to the trans rights law remain under challenge before the Supreme Court, WDI India has argued that the “constitutional issues” it has raised in its petition are not fully resolved by the 2026 amendments.
