The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that considering protective provisions for transgender people’s rights can throw up practical challenges, with trans women accessing benefits and asserting rights otherwise available to biological women under various statutes.
The concerns were brought before the court on Wednesday in a fresh petition by the India chapter of a women’s organisation called Women’s Declaration International, which said that while transgenders have a right to their identity, they should not be allowed to encroach into the constitutional and statutory benefits available to biological women. “My reply is getting ready. The question also arose in jails, wherein if a man identifies as a female, if he is to be kept in a women’s jail. Even under the penal statutes, arresting a woman after sunset is not permissible. This question will be raised with regard to trans women. Also, Mehta added that trans people may insist on being frisked only by female police personnel. “The Act makes provisions for transgenders. At the same time, there are constitutional and statutory benefits promised to biological females. He added that while the petitioner supported the right of transgenders to be identified as the third sex with equal rights available to any person, the implications of the rights that flowed from such identification needed to be determined.
With the validity of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 separately being challenged before the top court, solicitor- general Tushar Mehta said that he will address this concern among others in the Centre’s affidavit responding to a batch of petitions challenging the law’s validity on multiple grounds.
I will reply on this aspect too,” Mehta said. Mehta said that several high courts are now faced with the question of whether a man claiming to have the sexual identity of a woman should be allowed to participate in sporting events as a female contestant. Sibal said that even the Constitution reserves seats for women in Panchayats which cannot be encroached upon by trans women. The question is whether those rights and protections can be encroached upon by transgender persons,” he said.
