This Is What Change Looks Like: Trans Women Are Women In New India Law
In a powerful win for equality, an Indian court ruled that trans women must be fully recognized and protected as women under the law.
This month, India’s Andhra Pradesh High Court delivered the landmark ruling that transgender women are legally recognized as women under Indian law. The case involved Pokala Shabana, a trans woman who filed a complaint under the Indian Penal Code, which addresses cruelty by a husband or his relatives. Her in-laws argued that the law applied only to cisgender women, claiming Shabana didn’t qualify because she could not biologically birth children.
Justice Pratapa dismissed their argument. She said defining womanhood by the ability to give birth was both ‘unconstitutional and discriminatory.’ The court ruled that denying Shabana this protection violated her equality and denied her protection from sex-based discrimination. In her decision, the judge wrote that “a trans woman, born male and later transitioning to female, is legally entitled to recognition as a woman,” and confirmed that trans women can seek justice under the penal code for cruelty by a husband or his relatives (Section 498A).
This ruling comes after a decade of evolving legal protections for transgender people in India. In 2014, the Supreme Court’s NALSA v. Union of India decision recognized transgender individuals as a third gender and affirmed their right to self-identify as male, female, or third gender without requiring medical or surgical proof. That decision also directed the government to implement social welfare policies and legal recognition based on a person’s self-declared gender.
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Even before this 2025 ruling, courts across India were expanding rights for trans people. In 2016, the Calcutta High Court supported a person’s right to change legal gender after surgery. In 2019, the Madras High Court ruled that a trans woman qualified as a “bride” under the Hindu Marriage Act, allowing her to register her marriage legally. These earlier cases laid important groundwork for this most recent ruling.
The Andhra Pradesh ruling takes a decisive step forward by extending criminal protections that were once only reserved for cisgender women, to trans women. It firmly rejects the idea that biology determines gender in the eyes of the law, strengthens legal protections for trans women in relationships, and ensures they are no longer excluded from life-saving legal safeguards.
