For those who still ask: What’s in a name?

When 37-year-old Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli went to the registrar’s office in Hyderabad to officially change her name, the officers there asked her a question, “What are you inside?”

Vyjayanti, a transwoman, said that like others, she’s a person inside. The officer then demanded to know what gender she is when she’s naked. Vyjayanti is not alone. Hundreds of transpeople are currently facing everyday discrimination with local administrations while applying for a change of names. Several transpeople that DNA spoke to said that officials in the offices of the Controller of Publications in Delhi, Hyderabad or Madras routinely send away applicants under one pretext or another.

In most cases, officials claim that changing one’s name is akin to changing a person’s gender, and hence a sex reassignment surgery (SRS) certificate is mandatory. Some in the Controller of Publications also claim that no notification has come to them from state governments after the 2014 National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment. Several states, like Delhi do not have any guidelines in this regard.

Two pending cases in the Delhi High Court deal with this issue. There’s Jackie*, who was born a man. Rent agreements are difficult to make; clients are confused when her real name is revealed. “Every time she deals with a client, she needs to tell them her personal history. This has a psychological, as well as an economic consequence,” said advocate Rohit Kaliyar, who approached the court after the Controller of Publications refused to notify Jackie’s name in the Gazette of India, despite giving the requisite documents.

Kaliyar approached the court in April on two grounds. In the absence of any existing guidelines, there cannot be any discrimination while a person changes his or her name, he pleads. “Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife’s name is Navjot. How does the court decide a name is male or female,” says Rohit.

The second plea is that a board must be constituted to look into the issue of self-identification, which is denied by the government. Self-identification is the mainstay of the private member’s bill which was introduced by MP Tiruchi Siva in the Parliament, and was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2015. Early this year, the government came out with a similar bill, which mandates that identification is done by a committee constituted by the district administration and must include a collector, social welfare officer, psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker and someone from the transgender community. “Identification is a problem in the community. Why does the transperson need to give proof of identity, in front of a ‘board’. It defeats the purpose of my bill,” says Siva.

Another petition is one initiated by Delhi-based Kritika*, whose application was stonewalled by officials in the Controller of Publications office. They  told her that a SRS certificate is needed. She filed a case in May this year.
Amritananda Chakravorty of the Lawyer’s Collective, who has filed Kritika’s case, says that officials find the provision of self-identification too revolutionary. “The Controller of Publications office came out with a proforma last year which asks for several details about the applicant. Our plea is that the proforma be taken back, as the information will be out in the public domain, which is severely damaging for any transperson,” says Chakravorty.

Kritika has been living without identification proof for years now. “Can you imagine my life? I don’t travel to places that require it, and I cannot apply for anything that requires an ID proof,” she says.

In Tamil Nadu, transwoman Grace Bano says that in 2009, soon after the Tamil Nadu Transgender Welfare Board was constituted, the state government passed an order stating that SRS is not compulsory for identification as a transperson. Yet, implementation is low.

Grace says that she and other activists will now approach the PM with a new bill in November. “It will have provisions for a transgender certificate which will be issued by the state so that we do not have to knock on doors all the time,” she says.

NALSA judgment 

This is in contravention of the NALSA judgment of 2014, which stated that a SRS certificate is not needed to change one’s name in official or legal documents. The judgment also said that the pronouncements should be implemented by the states in the following six months of the judgment. Yet, it is more than two years and several states have not implemented it.

(*names changed)
(With inputs from Ritika Jain)