Major Relief For Trans People In India! AADHAAR Authority Accepts Transgender Card As Valid Document

For Anuprabha, it is now time for celebrations! After years of struggle, she got her AADHAAR card delivered with Transgender stamped on it. Born as Achintya Das Majumder, she always felt trapped in the wrong body. Though, after many challenging medical processes, she got the body that she feels of her own, she still had to carry her AADHAAR, Voter, and PAN cards in the old look and name.

Free To Choose!

From booking train tickets to simply showing a photo ID card to a hospital every time that piece of paper was used to bring her trauma, bullying, and name callings. Like hundreds of transgender men and women, she was desperate to get her chosen name, picture and gender marker.

With the Transgender Protection of Rights Act, 2020 in place Government of India opened a national Transgender Portal through which any Trans person could get their Government approved Transgender ID card from any part of India. The press release by the Government of India at the time of launching this portal clearly mentioned that this one window clearance was created to help Transgender Indians from running one department to another and facing challenges.

The portal also states that it is a statutory obligation that from the date of submission, it should not take more than thirty days to receive the Transgender ID card. Though it is far from reality, given that different state officials are taking different times to complete the process. Anuprabha, after a lot of challenges, could get her Transgender ID card by the month of May this year. Since then, she started trying to change her AADHAAR document into her new chosen identity with a photo. But the road was tougher.

According to Transgender India, a popular YouTube Channel that, in one of their video seen by millions, describes the process of changing the gender marker along with name and picture in vivid detail and legal nuances. It mentions at least eight documents from various state and central authorities that are needed to do the needful. It ranges from notarized affidavits to newspaper advertisements to making gazette notifications and many more as a legal road map to avail the needed AADHAAR card for a Transgender person.

What surprised Anuprabha is that the Transgender Rights Act 2020 clearly lists the documents that will be changed based on the Transgender ID card, and AADHAAR, Voter ID, PAN, and Birth Certificate are already on the list. Yet every time she tried to negotiate at AADHAAR Center, she was refused by one repetitive answer that there had been no such instructions received from AADHAAR authorities.

Anuprabha took this as a challenge and began another journey toward attaining her constitutional right. She reached out to many, including ADDHAAR authorities in charge of West Bengal. Many emails are written, arguments made, and meetings happened. Finally, on July 1, UIDAI, the AADHAAR authority of India included a Transgender ID card in their list of Acceptable Supporting Documents for Verification.

Thanks to the supportive stances taken by both the West Bengal head of the ADDHAAR department and higher authorities, Anuprabha finally managed to get her AADHAAR card by the end of August by using one single document, which is her Transgender ID Card.

A Long Wait!

Post the inclusion; it took time for the AADHAAR software to get updated. Once that is done, not all in the AADHAAR Seva Kendras across the State were aware of this new inclusion. So she was requested to visit AADHAAR Seva Kendra at Salt Lake, and there she also has to make operators understand the issue around Transgender Identity and the law. A determined mind can make mountains bent. With help from the centre director and staff members finally, she could complete the submission process respectfully.

The most important aspect of the effort that Anuprabha took is that from now onwards; no Trans person has to go through multiple challenges obtaining multiple documents to obtain the basic identity document. Her effort created powerful precedence for transgender rights in India.

"Our predecessors in the field of Transgender rights have given us a lot. Their sacrifices brought NALSA Judgment to the Supreme Court of India, which led to the Transgender Protection of Rights Act. Now for us, the younger generation it is time to make efforts towards the implementation of the same," says 29-year-old Anuprabha from Kolkata, West Bengal.

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