UK Book Launch - Transforming Rights: How Law Shapes Transgender Lives, identity and Community in India

Join us for the UK book launch of the first edited volume on transgender rights and the law in India. We will be joined by the editor, Jayna Kothari and one of the contributors, Vibha Swaminathan. The event will include an introduction to the book, and a presentation of the chapters written by Jayna and Vibha followed by an open discussion on transgender rights, equality and law in India. The discussion will be moderated by Yihong Chen.

India's rapid transformation in transgender rights has few global parallels. From the recognition of gender self-determination to the decriminalisation of same-sex relations, courts have set out a framework that guarantees dignity, autonomy and equal protection under the law. Yet the lived reality of the trans community continues to be marked by exclusion, discrimination, violence and the daily fight for even basic rights like access to education, healthcare, employment and shelter. Transforming Rights confronts this contradiction head-on. 
Edited by Jayna Kothari, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court and a leading practitioner in gender and equality law, this volume brings together scholars, activists, lawyers, policy researchers and community members whose work engages directly with transgender rights and the wider LGBTQIA+ community. The chapters explore constitutional protections, the demand for reservations, questions of intimacy and family, public attitudes, access to higher education and livelihood, structural exclusion and the intersection of trans activism with caste and indigeneity. 
Drawing on legal, social and community-based perspectives, the collection identifies the progress made, the challenges that persist and the reforms necessary to realise equal protection for transgender persons in India. 

Jayna Kothari is a Senior Advocate practising in the Supreme Court  of India and the co-founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR), Bangalore. She holds a BA LLB from University Law School, Bangalore, and read for the BCL at the University of Oxford. She was awarded the Dr D.C. Pavate Memorial Visiting Fellowship at the University of Cambridge.

Jayna has appeared in several landmark constitutional cases advancing gender and sexuality rights. She represented trans activist Akkai Padmashali and others in the challenge to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which led to its striking down in Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India. She also argued the successful challenge to the criminalisation of adultery in Joseph Shine v Union of India, and appeared in the marriage equality petitions under the Special Marriage Act (Supriyo @ Supriya Chakraborty and Another v Union of India).

In Jane Kaushik v Union of India, the Supreme Court appointed Jayna as amicus curiae and as a member of the Advisory Committee tasked with drafting an Equal Opportunity Policy for Transgender Persons to give full effect to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 and the fundamental rights of transgender persons. She is the author of The Future of Disability Law in India, published by Oxford University Press in 2012.

Vibha Swaminathan (she/her) is interested in the political and legal fragilities of citizenship, generated along intersectional axes of identity. She is reading for the Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford University.

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