Members of the LGBT community on Sunday gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, expressing concern that a countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC) will lead to their "exclusion" if their family disowns them or the sexes mismatch in documents.
Rituparna Borah, who hails from Assam's Lakhimpur district, said it is very difficult for LGBTQ members to procure documents if families turn hostile towards them. "What if my parents throw me out of the house. People elope, leave their houses because of violence. In such a situation, all they have is an Aadhaar card.
"It's very difficult to go back to the violent families to get documents. How will I prove I am an Indian?" Borah asked. Secondly, among transgender persons, name and sex in a birth certificate or a school certificate is different than in identity documents, she said.
"How do you establish it's the same person. According to reports, around 2,000 trans-women have been excluded from Assam NRC," Borah claimed. Ray, 24, said her documents still say she's male. If a countrywide NRC comes in, there will be discrepancies in documents.
"Which means the bureaucracy will get to exercise its discretion and we will be thrown out. It's already difficult to establish our names and sexes. How do you expect us to prove our lineage?" she asked. Divya Dureja, a queer psychologist, said in a large number of cases, gender assigned at birth do not match with the gender in identity documents.
"Due to this, the community members are living under a constant fear of being excluded in a pan-India NRC." Dureja claimed she has been receiving an increased number of patients who "complain of anxiety and depression due to the prevailing situation".