The geometry of exclusion: Beyond the binary in the Indian republic

To ask “what is a human being?” in the context of modern India is to step into a minefield of biological, social and legal contradictions. We are a nation that has, for millennia, held space for gender fluidity in our myths and our streets, yet we find ourselves governed by a rigid, colonial-era obsession with the binary.

While medical science often attempts to reduce the human condition to a tally of chromosomes and hormones, the reality of the transgender experience in India suggests that our bodies are not just biological facts, they are political battlegrounds.

The myth of biological finality

The popular imagination often treats biology as a “neat” science, one that sorts humanity into two immutable boxes. This is a fallacy that any serious scholar of gender must dismantle. Biology itself is not binary; it is a spectrum. From intersex variations — natural biological realities that do not conform to standard definitions of male or female — to the complex interplay of endocrinology, the human body refuses to be a static document.

Medical science usually labels this biological base as ‘sex’. However, the tragedy of modern medicine is its historical tendency to pathologise anything that deviates from the ‘norm’.

When we treat the gender binary as the only ‘natural’ state, we aren’t just following science; we are enforcing a specific, narrow ideology. The transgender person, by their very existence, ruptures this ideology, proving that the internal sense of self — the gender identity — is as foundational to the human experience as the anatomy we are born with.

The colonial shadow and the NALSA promise

In the Indian context, our struggle with gender is inextricably linked to our colonial history. Before the British arrival, communities like the Hijra, Aravani and Kinnar occupied complex, often ritualised roles in Indian society. While not always free from stigma, they were an undeniable part of the social fabric. It was the British Raj, through the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, that formally sought to erase these identities, labelling gender-nonconforming people as “monstrous” and “criminal.”

We are still living in the shadow of that Victorian morality.

The year 2014 was supposed to be our moment of decolonisation. In the landmark National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) v. Union of India judgment, the Supreme Court recognised transgender persons as a “Third Gender”. More importantly, it affirmed the right to self-identification.

The court recognised that forcing someone to live in a gender that does not match their internal reality is a violation of the fundamental right to dignity.

However, a PhD lens reveals a darker paradox: legal visibility is a double-edged sword. While the state began the process of “counting” transgender people, it did so through a lens of surveillance. The subsequent Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019 was met with widespread protests because it initially required medical certification to “prove” one’s gender — a direct contradiction of the NALSA promise of self-identification. This tension between the state’s desire to “verify” and the individual’s right to “be” remains the central friction of transgender life in India today.

The architecture of erasure: From classroom to clinic

If the law is the skeleton of a society, then culture is its flesh. And in India, that flesh is often hostile. The gap between de jure rights (on paper) and de facto survival (on the ground) is a chasm where many lives are lost.

The impact of discrimination begins in the most foundational unit of society: the family. For many transgender children, the home is the first site of “institutional erasure”. When a child’s identity is met with “corrective” violence or psychological shaming, the pipeline to vulnerability begins. This exclusion moves from the home to the school. Our educational institutions are built on a “cis-normative” architecture — from gendered uniforms to binary restrooms — that leaves no room for the gender-diverse student.

The result is a devastating “push-out” rate. When the school environment becomes unbearable, transgender youth drop out, not because they lack the ability to learn, but because the system lacks the empathy to teach them.

This early exclusion is the root cause of the economic precarity we see later in life. Without a formal education, many are pushed into the informal economy, sex work, or traditional badhai (ceremonial blessing) work, which, while culturally significant, often leaves them outside the protections of labour laws and social security.

The violence of the ‘normal’

We must speak candidly about violence. Transgender people in India face a spectrum of aggression that ranges from “micro-aggressions” — the daily indignity of being misgendered or mocked in public — to fatal physical violence. This violence is often systemic. It is the doctor who refuses to treat a trans woman because he “doesn’t know how her body works”. It is the landlord who evicts a trans man because “families” in the building are uncomfortable. It is the police officer who views a trans person as a criminal by default.

This is what we call “biopolitics” — the way the state and society exert power over certain bodies. When a society treats one group as “abnormal”, it implicitly permits that group to be mistreated. The high rates of mental health struggles, depression and suicidality within the community are not inherent to being transgender; they are the “symptoms” of living in a society that refuses to look at you with respect.

The path toward gender liberation

So, where do we go from here? A newspaper editorial usually ends with a call for “awareness”. But awareness is a weak word. We do not need people to simply “know” that transgender people exist; we need a radical restructuring of our public life.

Horizontal reservation: We must follow the lead of states like Karnataka and move toward horizontal reservations in education and employment. It is not enough to say “you are allowed to work here”; we must actively dismantle the barriers that have kept the community out of the formal workforce for decades.

Sensitisation of the ‘gatekeepers’: True change happens at the desk of the police constable, the nurse at the primary health centre, and the school principal. We need mandatory, ongoing training that moves beyond “tolerance” and toward “competency”.

Media responsibility: Our cinema and news media must stop using transgender bodies as punchlines or objects of pity. We need stories of transgender joy, professional success and mundane domesticity. Visibility without protection is merely exposure to danger.

A radical ethics of care: Finally, we must centre the autonomy of the individual. Whether a person chooses medical transition (hormones, surgery) or not, their identity is valid. The state should have no business in the “verification” of a human soul.

The human imperative

Ultimately, this is not a “transgender issue”. It is an Indian issue. It is a question of whether we are a republic that truly values Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, or if those words are reserved only for those who fit into the narrowest of boxes.

Biology may explain our bodies, but it does not define our humanity. The transgender community is not a “new” phenomenon or a “Western import”. They are our students, our neighbours, our artists, and our citizens. Progress is not a straight line; it is a struggle against the gravity of prejudice. To move from mere tolerance to genuine inclusion is to recognise that a person’s right to define themselves is the ultimate human right. Anything less is a failure of our democracy.