“The only thing I pray from God is to be born as a boy or a girl, not a transgender,” said Bobby, 28, a makeup artist from Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.

 Bobby is the name she chose for herself as a trans woman. But before she had chosen the name, the society had already given her several. “They called me chakka, hijra, mittha [slang words used to refer to trans people] when I was in school and it is still the same,” she said.

The Transgender Persons Bill, 2019 defines a transperson as someone whose gender does not match the one assigned at birth. According to the 2011 census, an estimated 4.8 lakh Indians identify as transgender.

At around age 12, Bobby realized she is different from others, “Since childhood, I liked to dress as a girl, I used to put kajal, bindi…even now I like it,” she said while she recalled how her family ridiculed and condemned her when she began to express her gender.  “We don’t know who we are. It is the family and the society which will tell us that we are hijra,” she added.  

Inspired by actress Pakhi Sharma famously known as Bobby Darling, she named herself Bobby, but she has no official document to prove her name or gender.

Bobby recalls an incident, early this year when she was stopped at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and asked, “Your name on the document is of a man but you look like a woman,” by the officials. Bobby had to explain that she is transgender, but when the officer couldn’t understand what she meant, “I clapped and said, Sir, I am a hijra and then he understood,” she said.

Like many other transpeople, Bobby is going through hormone treatment, which has partly changed her appearance. 

 For transgender people who want to transform physically, hormone therapy helps them to change their appearance and sex characteristics to match their gender identity.

Bobby who has studied till class 10th has an Aadhar Card, Pan Card, and school documents but all registered in her male name, “All my documents are with the name of Brahma Sharan Dutt with my old photo on it. And now I don’t look like that,’’ she said.

 Lack of social acceptance and unavailability of documents in their desired gender and desired names leave trans people with fewer job options forcing them into begging and selling sex.

Though Bobby works as a makeup artist, she said, “I stand at the red light wearing short clothes at night, I have to do something for my stomach, right?” We make as low as Rs 50 to a few hundred, she added.

"No one asks for your Aadhar card for sex work, do they?” asks, Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli, transgender RTI activist.  "To get into a job, at least one needs basic document, but they don't have that so they don't go into the formal employment and they just stick to begging and sex work." 

To change the desired name and gender in the documents, the applicant needs to submit a gazette notification which requires documents including

10th mark sheet, gender marker affidavit, two witnesses, gender dysphoria certificate, and original newspaper containing name-change advertisement among others.

"There is a lengthy procedure to change official documents. Many people don't know how to do this so they stick to their male or female identity," said Kalki Subramaniam, a trans activist, writer and founder of Sahodari Foundation, Tamil Nadu.

New lives, old names

Lovely, a 22-year-old trans woman from UP’s Ghaziabad recalls how she almost got the job but was rejected when her trans identity was revealed.

Last year, after an interview from a company (which she did not want to name) in Ghaziabad, Lovely got a call for the document verification. “After I had cleared all the rounds when they saw my documents with a male name, they said, this will be a problem,” she said.

Lovely who has studied till class 12th had submitted her school documents in the application which were in her birth name, Vinay Sharma which doesn’t match with her current appearance as a woman.

Lovely dresses up like a woman, she speaks like a woman and she feels like a woman but according to all her documents, she is a man. 

 As per The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2019, discrimination against a transgender person, including unfair treatment or denial of service for employment, education, healthcare, and access to public goods and facilities is prohibited, yet the stigma continues.

Transgender ID card

To facilitate the process of getting gender and name changed on the official documents, Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment launched the National Portal for Transgender Persons in November 2020. Through this portal, a trans person would receive an ID card which acts as a basis for their identity “within 30 days.” 

Veronica, 20, an undergraduate student at Lovely Professional University is among the 9,000 odd applicants for the trans-id-card. “They (the govt) say we will get it in 30 days but I have not received it even after a year,” she said, adding that the, “only official document I have is an Aadhar card but it is in my male name Vishal Tyagi.”

She has not applied for any other documents because, "the more documents there are, the more problems it will arise, it takes years to change a single document,” said Veronica.

Veronica wants to pursue her master's abroad in marine biology but that entirely depends on when she will get her official documents in her preferred name and gender.

“I have applied for the trans ID card and I am also going to get the gazette notification done, but I don’t know when it will all be over,” she further added.

More than just an ID card

For a common man, an identity card might be an important document but for a transgender person, it is much more than that.

"It's not just an ID card, it's something which we have been waiting for throughout our life. We have been trapped in the wrong body. We want the people to call us who we are, not with the body we are born in," said Ramkali, a trans activist and founder of Basera, an NGO working for the transgender welfare.

Like several other trans community members, Ramkali has all her documents in her male name Rizwan Khan, including her trans ID card which she received after an 8-month wait. Her chosen name ‘Ramkali’ has not been printed on the new ID card due to an ‘error.’

“Where is Ramkali? Ramkali is lost in all the documents, there is no Ramkali in any Government data,” she said.