In 2014, the Supreme Court of India passed down a landmark judgment on transgender rights. In its conclusion, the Court issued nine specific commands to the Government of India, which aimed to improve the legal, social, and political situation of transgender people.
What can we learn from this judgement about transgender rights in India? What implications do the recommendations set out by the Indian Supreme Court have for thinking about transgender rights outside India?
In this roundtable, panellists will discuss these nine commands, and particularly the extent to which they resonate with transgender rights discussions in other geographic contexts.
Dr Ben Hegarty is a Research Fellow in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Deakin University and Honorary Fellow at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. His Ph.D. dissertation research (Australian National University) on transgender femininity and national modernity in Indonesia appears in Transgender Studies Quarterly and Medicine Anthropology Theory. He also works collaboratively with Indonesian physicians to undertake applied social scientific research, funded by UNAIDS Indonesia and the ANU Indonesia Project.
Michelle McNamara is an out and proud transgender woman who is an active committee member of both the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council and Transgender Victoria. Michelle has been active in campaigns for transgender rights in Victoria for several years, most recently the campaign in 2016 to amend the Victorian births deaths and marriages act to liberalise the rights of transgender people to change details of their gender on their birth certificate. Michelle also is the social media, communication and events manager for Transgender Victoria.
Dr J.R. Latham is Honorary Fellow in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. His research combines science and technology studies, feminist theory and literary studies to critique the medical management of ‘gender dysphoria’ via the lived realities of trans men. He is an award-winning essayist and his work has been published in journals such as Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the Australasian Journal on Ageing, Feminist Theory, Sexualities and Studies in Gender and Sexuality. jrlatham.com
Dr Jeff Redding is a New Generation Network Scholar at the Australia India Institute and a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne Law School. Jeff’s research interests are in the areas of comparative law and religion, Islamic law, legal pluralism, family law, and law & sexuality. He earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Jeff’s current research looks at a network of non-state Muslim courts in India and the relationship of the Indian state with these Muslim courts, as well as transgender rights in South Asia.
For more information and to register see the Australia India Institute webpage.
Please note that this is not a Deakin University Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network event. Please contact the organisers for further information.
