Tag Archives: SRS

1

Jeeva M. v. State of Karnataka WP No. 12113/2019(EDN-RES)

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Reading Time: 5 minutes

On the 26th of March, 2019, a single bench of the Karnataka High Court directed the Department of Education of Karnataka State to issue circulars to educational institutions requiring them to implement the directions issued by the Supreme Court in NALSA. Additionally, it also directed the Department to expeditiously consider a representation made by a trans-masculine person for name and gender change in his school and pre-university educational records. In this blog, I will primarily argue that even if a petitioner submits sex re-assignment (SRS) certificate and psychological evaluation certificate in support of his name and gender change application, as per NALSA, the court should not consider them in making their ruling. Name and gender change applications can be made on the basis of self-determination alone. The right to a self-determined gender identity has been found to a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) and under the the personal autonomy guarantee of Article 21. However, the trend of the Indian courts has been to rely on SRS certificates when a person tries to change their gender and name contrary to their societal perception. I will also mention an interesting argument made in the petition regarding privacy under Article 21. This argument was made in addition to the other constitutional violations alleged in the case but I am not detailing with those arguments as they are quite standard.

1. FACTS OF THE CASE

Since the petition filed in court was publicly available, I have relied on it to draw out the facts. The petitioner was an 18 year old male whereas the respondents were the State Pre-University Education Department (PU Department) and the State Higher Secondary Education Department (SSLC).The petitioner had been assigned gender female at birth which was recorded in his birth certificate but had identified as male from a very young age. He also passed his SSLC and PU examinations with gender recorded on those pass certificates as “girl.” In line with his intention to change his name and gender to that of a male, he executed an affidavit and issued public notice in the form of newspaper advertisements in a regional daily and in a local newspaper. These procedures were in line with the general procedures specified by the Gazette of India to record a change of name. Incidentally, the Department of Publication of the Government of India has now uploaded a new performa on their website which can be used for name and gender change. The performa does not require the applicant to have undergone SRS or psychological evaluation for the same.

In addition to the Gazette process, the petitioner also underwent psychiatric assessment. The psychiatrist diagnosed the petitioner with gender identity disorder, and certified that he did not have any psychological constraints holding him back from a SRS. In India, a diagnosis of gender identity disorder is a pre-requisite for a SRS. He underwent some medical procedures to align his body with his true gender identity. On the basis of this operation and the affidavit, he obtained an Aadhar card in his true gender with a male name. The facts state that the petitioner then sent a representation to the respondents to change his name and sex in his educational records. Neither in the petition nor in the judgment do the facts reveal the contents of this representation. In order words, it is unclear whether the petitioner sent the certificate of psychiatric evaluation and the SRS certificate in the representation package. However, arguably he did, especially because the petition highlights that the respondents’ refusal to change his certificates causes grave inconvenience to the petitioner “who has undergone sex re-assignment surgery and changed his name and gender from that assigned at birth.” [writ petitioner page 8-9 and 11].

While the Pre-University Department did not reply, the Higher Secondary Education department replied to the representation stating that it would need a court order to proceed with this request. Accordingly, the petitioner filed a writ of mandamus praying that the court direct the PU Department and the SSLC department to issue new educational certificates to the petition reflecting his true gender and name.

2. ARGUMENTS OF THE PARTIES

The petitioner alleged that the respondents’ refusal to change his name and gender to male violated his right to life, equality, gender identity, dignity, and privacy under Article 14, 15, 19(1)(a) and 21. The State did not oppose the petition but stated that the representation of the petitioner will be decided on the basis of the law, after considering the requisite documents and supporting evidence accompanying of the request.

3. HOLDING OF THE COURT

The court directed the Education Department to issue circulars to educational institutions regarding the directions issued in the NALSA decision and take necessary steps to have them implemented “in an expedite manner” [para 9 of the judgment].

4. RIGHT TO PRIVACY ARGUMENT

The petitioner argued that the inaction of the respondents was a violation of the right to privacy of the petitioner because he had to constantly keep revealing his previous gender as a female until the change is made [writ petition, page 10]

5. SRS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAM

It is evident from the petition that the petitioner had sent his SRS certificate and psychological evaluation certificate along with other materials in support of his representation for name and gender change. As per NALSA, the petitioner need not have sent these documents. It is unclear on what basis the court directs the Department of Education to review the representation made by the petition, but even if the petitioner sends in such documents, the courts must not rely on them because:

  1. The insistence on SRS has been ruled illegal and unethical in NALSA. Therefore, even if a petitioner has undergone SRS of his own volition and submitted those documents, the courts must categorically refuse to rely on that certificate to grant the relief. The relief must be granted on the fact that in NALSA, the Supreme Court had stated that self-determined gender identity is a fundamental right under Articles 19(1)(a) and 21, and that the court did not require anyone to undergo SRS to claim this right.
  2. The need for psychological examinations has also arguably been negatived in NALSA because:
    1. the Supreme Court stated that the right to a self-determined gender is a fundamental right with which the State cannot interfere, and a psychological exam would count as interference. (NALSA, page 78). Additionally, the court stated that the gender identity claim was based not on medical or surgical procedure, but on self-determination, and a psychological process would count as medical process. In fact, this finding of the court was based on Principle 3 of the Yogyakarta principles which in full state that, “no person may be forced to undergo any form of medical or psychological treatment, procedure or testing…based on gender identity.” [NALSA, pages 18-19, 85]
    2. Within the personal autonomy protection of Article 21 is included a positive right to a self-determined gender and a negative right to resist interference by others, and a psychological exam would count as interference (NALSA, page 80-81).
    3. In NALSA, the Supreme Court has stated that “determination of gender to which a person belongs is to be decided by the person concerned.” [NALSA, page 84].
    4. The court does not identify a role for a psychologist/psychiatrist in the entire NALSA judgment.

 

My thanks to Upasana Garnaik for telling me about this case. 

6

K. Gowtham Subramaniyam v. Controller of Examination Anna University W.P. No. 7536/2017

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On the 1st of June, 2017, a single judge bench of the Madras High Court directed Anna University to change the name and sex in the records of the petitioner, a transgender man. In this post, I will summarize the case with a focus on the different medical processes “on account of” which the court passed this direction. Additionally, I will seek to demonstrate that:

  1. In the reported cases post NALSA which require a determination of gender identity for the allocation of rights, courts have usually relied on sex re-assignment surgery (SRS)[1] and anatomical approximation post SRS, but not on psychological tests.
  2. Government departments in different states do not follow any uniform procedure though it is not unlikely that the department may ask for a SRS certificate.
  3. The Transgender (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 [“2016 Bill”] has the potential to turn the NALSA self- determination principle on its head by empowering a District Magistrate and a screening committee to certify whether a person is transgender.
  1. MEDICAL PROCEDURES UNDERTAKEN IN THE PRESENT CASE

The petitioner, assigned gender female at birth, “always felt and lived like a man”, as the High Court put it. He underwent the following gender affirmative procedures:

  1. A gender identity disorder diagnosis
  2. Hormone replacement therapy
  3. Psychological testing and certification declaring petitioner fit for surgery
  4. SRS

He received a certificate from the doctors after the surgery attesting to the fact that the petitioner was transgender and had undergone SRS. After these procedures, the petitioner changed his name to K. Gowtham and issued a public notice to the effect by a publication in the in the Tamil Nadu Gazette. He also obtained an Aadhar card in his male name. Thereafter, he made a written representation to Anna University to change his name. The University, citing lack of provision or precedent to effect the change, required that the petitioner present a transgender certificate from the District Magistrate, per the proposed 2016 Bill.

The High Court found that “on account” of the SRS and the subsequent doctor certificates, the petitioner, “has become a complete male.” [para 2]. Accordingly, the High Court directed the university to change the name and sex on the records and certificates of the petitioner.

  1. THE COURT’S RELIANCE ON MEDICAL PROCEDURES IS IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW

Not only does the High Court rely on the SRS and medical certificates, it also presumably relies on the anatomical correctness of the post-surgery sex organs when it declares that, “the petitioner has become a complete male.” This judgment doubly violates NALSA by: 1. Granting the prayer arguably only on terms ruled illegal by NALSA (the SRS); and 2. Going a step further to presumably see how successful the surgeries had been in replicating the male anatomy.

  1. THE COURT’S RELIANCE ON THE ANATOMICAL SUCCESS OF THE OPERATION IS INCORRECT IN LAW

Arguably, the court’s declaration that the petitioner had become a “complete man” per medical certificates weighed on its decision to declare that the petitioner’s records be changed. I have argued above that such reliance is illegal as per NALSA.

However, this decision needs to be seen in the light of another development as well. The procedure laid down by the 2016 Bill for the recognition of a person as transgender has the potential to become heavily medicalized, in contravention of the NALSA ruling. Whereas the thrust of the NALSA judgment was on self- determination, the proposed Bill empowers the District Magistrate (DM) to certify whether a person is transgender (Ss.4-8). Though the full procedure of how this shall be done has not been laid out in the Bill, the composition of the District Screening Committee on whose recommendations the DM will certify, may give us some indications. The committee shall comprise:

  1. A Chief Medical Officer;
  2. Social welfare officer;
  3. Psychologist or psychiatrist;
  4. Representative of transgender community;
  5. A government officer.

The requirement of doctors, both medical and psychological, is without any basis in the NALSA judgment. NALSA relies on self- determination rendering a medical or psychological opinion on whether a person really is transgender, unnecessary. While NALSA’s reliance on the phrase “psychological test” may lead some to believe that transgender persons can be made to undergo a psychological exam to corroborate the fact of their gender identity, the judgment, if read in full, arguably uses the phrase “psychological test” to refer to the internal self belief of a person, a belief in the realm of the psyche, and not an actual psychological test understood in clinical terms. Justice Radhakrishnan’s mention of a psychological test must be read in light of his explicit statement that, “Determination of gender to which a person belongs is to be decided by the person concerned.” [Page 84]. Moreover, the judgment never identifies the role of a psychologist or psychiatrist while upholding the right to self- determined gender. The only instance of the usage of the word psychiatrist in the judgment is by Justice Sikri when he is describing what SRS entails. He also arguably does not identify the role of a psychiatrist or a psychologist in gender identity because he bases his judgment on the fundamental principle of an individual’s “right to choose” [page 91]. Finally, the Supreme Court’s direction 2 clearly states that a transgender person’s right to self identified gender is upheld, placing the obligation on the government to provide legal recognition in accordance. A psychological or psychiatrist exam would militate against very spirit of a self identified gender identity. The reported judgments post NALSA seem to have understood this requirement correctly. Either deliberately or inadvertently, they have not required the results of a psychological exam before upholding the rights of a petitioner to self identity as transgender, even as they have required proof of SRS, and a “successful” SRS to grant these rights [See table 1].

TABLE 1

POST NALSA CASES IN WHICH THE DETERMINATION OF GENDER IDENTITY IS IN ISSUE

In this table, I have excluded cases in which the court incorrectly equated intersex with transgender and intersex claimants did not seek to identify in a gender different from that assigned at birth.  Additionally, I have excluded cases in which the determination of the transgender identity of the parties is not a legal issue.

 

Case Reliance on SRS Reliance on Anatomical Resemblance Reliance on Psychological Exam
Shivani Bhat

 

(Delhi HC)

 No No No
Shivam Santosh Dewagan

 

(Chhattisgarh HC)

 Yes Yes No
K. Gowtham

 

(Mad. HC)

 Yes Yes No
Prithika Yashini

(Mad. HC)

 Yes Arguably No but details of medical certificates examined are not reproduced in judgment. No
S. Swapna

(Mad. HC)

 Yes Id. No

Additionally, it is not uncommon for government departments to ask for SRS, as reported online or shared on listservs. See table in this Doc. This table also demonstrates that it is unclear what additional documents transgender applicants need to produce in addition to the published procedure.

In the present case, the court did not pay heed to the university’s demand for a DM certificate because the 2016 Bill has not yet become law. However, the section, if passed, may cause the right of a transgender person to self identify to change hands and become the right of the DM to identify a transgender person. This section has faced stiff opposition from activists, lawyers and scholars working in the field. See, for example, this collection of critiques of the 2016 Bill. If the 2016 Bill passes in its current form, it is very likely that the principle of self-determination of gender identity will have little or no meaning; doctors of the body and mind will make these decisions in scenes that will remind us of Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic.

 

[1] A recent study has suggested that the term Gender Affirmative Surgery better signifies how transgender persons experience this surgery. However, for the present blog, I use the term SRS for reading consistency between court rulings and my critiques because the courts have been using SRS.

I am grateful to Dr. L. Ramakrishnan (Ramki) for extensive discussions around this blog and for pointing me to the collection of critiques of the 2016 Bill. Ramki is the Vice-President at SAATHII, a public health non- profit, and volunteers at Orinam, a volunteer collective with extensive internet resources on the queer movement in India.

2

Shivam Santosh Dewangan v. State of Chhattisgarh 2016 CriLJ2819

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Reading Time: 7 minutes

On the 27th of April, 2016, a single judge bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court granted bail pending trial in a rape case. The prosecutrix, a transgender woman who had undergone sex re-assignment surgery (“SRS”) commenced a sexual relationship with the accused upon a promise to marry. When that promise was broken, she lodged an FIR alleging rape, among other things. This case concerned the bail application of the accused who had been imprisoned following the FIR.  Sexual relationships based on (later) broken promises to marry may qualify as rape but this blog is not an opinion on that issue. Neither is it an opinion on bail proceedings. Instead in this blog, I focus on two of the reasons for the grant of bail: 1. The court’s incorrect finding that the prosecutrix was not a woman only because all her female sex organs had not fully formed post SRS; and 2. The court’s incorrect implication that the prosecutrix could not be raped only because her vagina was not fully developed. I argue that these findings are incorrect in law and end up excluding certain legal subjects from the protection of rape law.

REASONS FOR GRANTING BAIL

Before expanding on the reasons for bail, we recall that rape, as per the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC”), is a crime that can be committed only against a woman. The judge granted bail for the following reasons: 1. She was not entirely a woman i.e. “…her sex ha[d] not changed in tune with gender characteristics from male to female even after SRS surgery.”[1] 2. According to her medical report, her vagina was not completely formed and her secondary sexual characteristics were still developing; 3. There was a year long delay in filing the FIR 4. No semen was found on her clothes; 5. No custodial interrogation of the accused was required; and 6. The prosecutrix was a 23 old adult. I will deal in depth with reason 1 and 2 and make some general observations about reasons 3-6 in respect of bail proceedings. Bail proceedings are not a determination of the merits of the case i.e. whether the accused is guilty or not. Generally, in non-bailable offences like rape, the accused cannot demand bail as a matter of right.[2] Moreover, in cases such as rape, if there is an appearance of guilt, bail shall be denied. Therefore, it is common, to my understanding, for courts to consider the kinds of evidence it did to arrive at the bail decision.[3] This is despite the fact that some of the evidence they examine may be thrown out as inadmissible at the trial stage, or the conclusions drawn from them may be legally incorrect as I will demonstrate below.[4] However, in this blog, I am not focussing on the merits or demerits of such kinds of bail proceedings.2.

COURT’S INCORRECT CONCLUSION THAT THE PROSECUTRIX WAS NOT A WOMAN (REASON 1)

The question in the case was one concerning rape—primarily, whether sexual intercourse on a promise to marry is rape, if the promise is later broken. The short legal answer to that question is yes, it may be rape.[5] Now, though he had been chargesheet-ed on a rape complaint (S.375, IPC), the accused argued that the prosecutrix was not a woman because her sexual characteristics had not developed. Accordingly, he could not have raped her. Examine this report from the medical officer in which he found that the vagina and the secondary sexual characteristics of the prosecutrix had not fully developed:

“Examine [sic] patient is a transgender [sic] has undergone sex change surgery 3 years back around 2013 at Dr. Kalda Clinic. Second Sexual Character on developing stage, has not started menses. Axillary hair+, Vagina is incompletely formed. No sign of injury seen over the anal region or vaginal area. 2 slides prepared from the anal region area. From the above clinical finding about sexual intercourse cannot be told.” [para 7]

The prosecutrix had undergone SRS in 2013. The Supreme Court in 2014 had declared that all transgender persons had a fundamental right to their self identified gender and any insistence on SRS is both illegal and immoral (Directions 2 and 5). Therefore, a transgender person can self indentify as either a man, a woman or third gender (Direction 2). If SRS was not required then there was no reason to medically examine the prosecutrix as to her sex characteristics. Her self-determination as a woman should have been sufficient to place her in the category of “woman” for the purpose of the allegation of rape. Some transgender persons undergo the SRS and some do not. However, that is not a legal requirement to be recognized as either a transgender or a woman as per the NALSA judgment. Instead, this court erroneously relied on the exposition of J. Sikri in NALSA on the experience of SRS. In para 103 of NALSA, J. Sikri explained that SRS is not an overnight process. By this the judge only sought to explain the steps involved in a SRS operation—from the decision, to the hormone therapy and the psychiatric evaluation and then the operation. He did not wish to point out that even after the SRS, the sexual features do not develop overnight, and even if he did, the directions abovementioned given by the full court render inquiry into the state of sex characteristics irrelevant. Therefore, the court’s conclusion that the prosecutrix was not a woman is incorrect in law.

STATE OF DEVELOPMENT OF SEX ORGANS AND IMPLICATIONS OF SUCH INQUIRY: CREATION OF LEGAL SUBJECTS WHO CANNOT BE RAPED (REASON 2)

Reason 2 for the grant of bail stated that the vagina of the prosecutrix was not fully formed, implying that she could not be raped. The court stated: “…further considering the fact that her vagina is not fully developed and the secondary sexual characters are on developing stage, as case of the prosecutrix is falling under Section 375(a) of the Indian Penal Code… this Court is of the view that it is a fit case to release the applicant on bail.” [para 12]. 375(a) of the IPC states that, “a man is said to commit rape if he (a) penetrates his penis, to any extent, into the vagina, mouth, urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person…”

First, rape under 375(a) can be committed by insertion of penis into places other than the vagina as well: the mouth, the anus, the urethra. There was no reason therefore, for the court’s exclusive focus on vaginal penetration under the 375(a) charge. To be sure, the court did observe that there were no signs of anal injury.  Not only is this still an incomplete coverage of 375(a), lack of injury is not determinative of innocence in rape cases—especially ones of this sort. Irrespective, it was not lack of anal injury but absence of a fully developed vagina that featured in the list of reasons provided by the court for granting bail.

Second, 375(a) penalizes non consensual penetration into the vagina, and not non-consensual penetration into a medically correct vagina. Inquiry into the medical correctness and dimensions of the vagina not only misses the point of rape law which punishes “Offences Affecting the Human Body” [Chapter under which Rape Provisions are housed], such inquiries end up creating legal subjects who “cannot” be raped: post- SRS transgender women with incompletely formed vaginas, intersex women with ambiguous genatalia and biological women whose vaginas don’t fit the medical category, for example. For this prosecutrix such a determination has created this quandary: though the court is treating her as a woman because she has undergone the SRS, and the court refers to the prosecutrix with a feminine pronoun, it is implying that the prosecutrix cannot be raped because she does not have a fully formed vagina. At the same time, her SRS operation has taken her out of the category of a man and therefore S. 377, IPC is not attracted. Therefore, she may have been raped but accused, if found guilty, will neither be punished for rape (376, IPC) nor under 377, IPC. Finally, if courts are going to require a medically correct vagina standard to grant relief in rape cases, how will law address rape cases of transgender women who do not undergo SRS? One immediate answer is that such cases may be handled under 377 but this solution leaves the transgender woman divided against herself, a woman for all purposes, but a man for the purposes of rape law. Lawyers, judges, legislators and others in the business of law need to know more about how transgender persons understand their body before they can formulate satisfactory solutions for their criminal law needs.

———————————————————————————————————-

[1] Para 12.

[2] See Section 437 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973: When Bail May be Taken in Case of Non-Bailable Offence.

[3] For a general understanding on the jurisprudence behind bail see K.N. Chandrashekharan Pillai, “Bail” in R.V. Kelkar’s Criminal Procedure (Eastern Book Company, 2014) 289-344.

[4] For a contrasting viewpoint, see Abhinav Sekhri, “Reversing the Presumption of Innocence- Part III” http://theproofofguilt.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/reversing-presumption-of-innocence-part_9.html

[5] The key question to be answered in this situation is whether the prosecutrix consented to the sexual intercourse only because she believed the accused’s promise to marry to be true? Without expressing an opinion on whether this is a good test, I present some preliminary observations on how the Indian courts apply this test. The court applies the test in this fashion: 1. If there are other reasons which could have influenced her decision, the courts have not found sex based on broken promises to marry as rape. Other reasons include love between the parties, absence of evidence that the accused never intended to keep his promise to marry when he made it, prosecutrix’s consent despite knowledge of insurmountable caste differences etc. 2. There is no hierarchy of reasons– the prosecutrix may have loved the accused but consented to a sexual relationship only because he promised to marry her; the court does not go into this inquiry. 3. The court’s real test appears to be a search for a dispassionate (pun intended) yes in promise to marry cases which connects with how female sexuality is construed. The woman is construed as a passive recipient of sex and therefore any desire on her part to have sex which pre-dates the promise counts against her rape charge. Key cases on this point are: Uday v. State of Karnataka AIR 2003 SC 1639; Deelip Singh @ Dilip Kumar v. State of Bihar AIR 2005 SC 203; Jayanti Rani Panda v. State of West Bengal and Anr. 1984 CriLJ 535.

Curiously, presence of factors other than the promise to marry lead the court to conclude that the prosecutrix could not have really relied on the promise to marry before having sex; love, caste differences etc. weaken the authenticity of the promise. There is of course another way to read these factors which is this: could not the love, the desire to united over caste differences lead the prosecutrix to believe even more in the promise to marry? Not only does the court promote a cynical view of love and sex, it places the burden of this cynicism on the prosecutrix: the prosecutrix should have been aware that the promise to marry could not have been real owing to caste differences; the court doesn’t conclude or raise a presumption that the accused never intended to marry, owing to insurmountable caste differences, when he promised to marry [see this claim esp. in light of how S.114A of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 shifts the burden of proof on the accused and presumes lack of consent when the prosecutrix in a rape trial alleges lack of consent.]

My thanks to Arushi Garg for pointing me in the direction of the key cases on this topic, and also for the enlightening discussion on the theory and practice of cases concerning sex on a promise to marry. Arushi is a doctoral student in the law department at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on conviction rates in rape cases in Delhi.