Aadhaar, a noose for transgender community by Jayna Kothari

SouthWord

Jayna Kothari is a co-founder of the Centre for Law and Policy Research in Bangalore and practices as a Counsel in the Karnataka High Court and the Supreme Court of India. In this 5-part series on the Aadhaar project by UIDAI, Kothari explains the impact of Aadhaar's mandatory gender disclosure clause on the rights of the sexual minorities of the country. Have you ever wondered if declaring your gender a violation of privacy? Transgender and intersex individuals go through multiple gender markers throughout their lives. Their identity documents may therefore have different gender markers. Declaring gender for Aadhaar is problematic not only from a privacy perspective for the transgenger community, but makes them vulnerable to threats, violence and even forced outing.