MUMBAI, April 5 -- In response to nationwide protests against the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, Soho House-a private members' club for professionals in fashion, entertainment, media and art-in Juhu, hosted a discussion titled 'Beyond Visibility: Understanding the Transgender Bill and its Impact' on Saturday. The purpose of the discussion was to help the audience understand the granular implications of the new law for transgender people in India about their legal status, social attitudes, access to medical services, employment opportunities and their mental health. Rather than tokenistic representation, the discussion was unique discussing as the conversation was led by trans voices - there were four trans women on stage, including three speakers-Zainab Patel, Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, Zoya, and the moderator Jamini Baviskar. Patel, who led diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Cummins India, Pernod Ricard, KPMG and the UNDP India Country Office, was a petitioner in the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) vs Union of India Case that secured legal recognition for transgender persons and affirmed their fundamental rights under the Indian Constitution with a Supreme Court verdict in 2014. This ruling established the right to self-identification, without requiring hormone therapy, genital reconstruction, facial contouring, or any other medical procedures. The new law passed by the Parliament takes away this right to self-identification. Patel, who is also the founder of the Andheri-based Trans Cafe and the Prabhadevi-based Transformation Salon, both social entrepreneurship initiatives to empower trans people economically, said, "To me, this is like going back to the ice age." Underlining the significance of the protests against the new law, she added, "When no bureaucrats or politicians worth their salt were listening to us. the Supreme Court, through the NALSA judgement, had told us that we did not need the state to identify us. How we identified ourselves is what mattered. That has gone." Another speaker on the panel, Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, the first openly trans medical doctor from Karnataka who now lives in Mumbai, and acted in OTT series such as Made in Heaven, Rainbow Rishta and Kankhajura, pointed out the practical impossibility of setting up medical boards all over the country to determine whether a person is truly transgender before a district magistrate issues a certificate to the individual in question. "Only a psychiatrist is professionally qualified to diagnose gender dysphoria (incongruence between self-identified gender and sex assigned at birth). Even according to the most conservative estimate, India has at least 1.5 million trans people. We simply do not have enough psychiatrists in our country," she said. The third speaker, Zoya, who works as a DEI leader in the real estate sector, said, "The trans employees in our organization are anxious about what this new law means because there is so much ambiguity. The NALSA judgement had changed a lot of perceptions about trans people. We don't know what will happen at a societal level." She was happy to see that many people who came to listen to the discussion were not trans people but allies. "I feel a lot of fatigue rather than anger or sadness. But this kind of support means a lot. It gives me strength." The discussion was moderated by Jamini Baviskar, a Dalit trans woman, who works as a human resources professional with a mandate to create an inclusive workplace. Joining the speakers in their unanimous opposition to medicalizing gender identity and increased surveillance of trans people, she said, "Women who are eligible for the Majhi Ladkin Bahin Yojana in Maharashtra are given Rs.1,500. There is no medical board to give a certificate of womanhood." Similarly, she argued, trans people's right to self-identification must be respected. The discussion was hosted in partnership with Gaysi Family. Among the people who attended were actors Jim Sarbh, Shweta Tripathi and Sheena Khalid....