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This study critically interrogates the changing idea of transgender citizenship in India through a careful examination of certain autobiographical writings by A Revathi, Lakshman Tripathi and Living Smile vis-à-vis the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026. These autobiographies conceptualise identity as an individualised, fluid and contextual self-identification as a product of social alienation, cultural affiliation and corporeal experience. Although the NALSA judgement has upheld the right to self-declared gender, the Amendment Bill proposes a new structure of conditional recognition, where medical certifiers and the state must validate transgender identity. By drawing upon the work of theorists such as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and T.H. Marshall, the paper shows that transgender citizenship in India becomes a regulated and conditional status rather than one that is completely determined and self-governed by the individual. The discussion examines the problem between self-declared and state-declared transgender identity in contemporary India.
Ms. Monika. “Transgender Citizenship and Conditional Recognition: Reading Indian Trans Autobiographies through the Lens of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 20-40. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.2.
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