Jodhpur, March 31 -- The Rajasthan high court on Monday raised concerns over the recently passed Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, observing that the proposed law removes the statutory recognition of a transgender person's right to self-perceived gender identity and risks reducing a fundamental aspect of personhood to a state-controlled process. The observations, which also asked the Rajasthan government to prioritise self-identification of gender in its policies , were made by a division bench of justices Arun Monga and Yogendra Kumar Purohit while deciding a petition filed by Ganga Kumari, a transgender person from Jalore district, who had challenged a Rajasthan government notification that included transgender persons in the other backward classes category without providing a separate framework for reservation. In an epilogue appended to the judgment, the court noted: "While the judgment was being finalised, just before its release Parliament passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 (yet to become an Act, as it is pending the assent of the President and notification). It is proposed therein that sub-section (2), i.e., the right to self-perceived gender identity in Section 4 of the Principal Act, shall be omitted. Thus, the proposed Bill seeks to amend the 2019 Act by taking away the right to self-determination or self-proclamation of being a third gender." The new bill, passed by Parliament last week, redefines the category of transgender, removes the provision of self-perceived gender identity, and excludes several sociocultural identities as well as transmasculine individuals from its ambit. The bill has triggered protests across the country by transgender groups and activists....