India, April 6 -- The resistance to the transgender law has, so far, been united. Sprung without notice or consultation with the community and passed in unseemly haste even after it became clear that those it was supposed to 'protect' were fiercely opposed to it, the amendment had brought together disparate factions across caste, religion and geography. On the streets, in maidans, at demonstrations and jan suwais (people's hearings) there was anger, anxiety and determination to fight it, even after the bill was passed in both houses of Parliament and it became law.

The path ahead was clear. On the day the bill to amend the law was introduced in Parliament on March 13, I spoke to an activist lawyer. Would the bill be challenged in court? ...