Punishing process: On gender identity recognition.
Gender identity recognition must not be trapped in bureaucratic hurdles.
The Manipur High Court’s order to the State to issue fresh academic certificates to Beoncy Laishram is at once a matter of individual justice and a larger commentary on the state of transgender rights. What should have been a simple administrative correction became a legal battle, not because the law lacks provisions but because its implementation remains frustrated by inertia and bureaucratic rigidity. In NALSA vs Union of India, the Supreme Court recognised the right to self-identify gender and ordered the state to treat transpersons as socially and educationally backward classes entitled to welfare measures. The principle was codified in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019, which also obligated authorities to recognise a person’s self-identified gender and issue official documents. Together with Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, transpersons are thus entitled to having their affirmed identity seamlessly recognised in all institutional records. Yet, their lived reality is very different. Despite the law being clear on self-identification, bureaucratic setups often do not act unless compelled by higher authorities. In Dr. Laishram’s case, her university refused to update her educational records citing procedural hurdles — symptomatic of a systemic malaise. Administrators routinely defer to the most restrictive reading of procedure rather than the spirit of the law. In the present matter, the university and education boards insisted that corrections must begin with the earliest certificate, qualifying recognition on a cascading set of bureaucratic approvals.
Where the law envisages gender as a matter of self-determination for transgender individuals, many officials remain wedded to the binary markers assigned at birth, and the mismatch translates into a stunted application of a simple idea. The insistence on sequential corrections or elaborate justifications is essentially a refusal to accept that gender identity is not derived from paperwork. Dr. Laishram’s struggle also shows how institutional reluctance to operationalise this principle forces transpersons into prolonged legal contests over what should be routine matters. Such episodes reveal a troubling truth: transpersons, navigating stigma and discrimination, are forced to expend disproportionate time and resources to access rights that are legally theirs. The High Court judgment is undoubtedly positive: it also sets a precedent that may help other transpersons and signals to administrators that procedural rigidity cannot override constitutional and statutory guarantees. Bridging the gap between legal rights and their application will require both institutional reform and cultural change within the bureaucracy that draw from an understanding of gender as lived reality.