Indian transgender patients left in limbo following legal amendments

When transgender woman Kali Sidharth Medepalli began hormone replacement therapy in India, she expected to complete her medical transition and undergo surgery within a year.

But just months after she began treatment earlier this year, India’s parliament amended the country’s transgender law, and the clinic where she was receiving care stopped her medicines.

“Everything shut down,” the 23-year-old communications specialist and LGBTQ rights activist said in the southern city of Hyderabad. Kali said she went 10 days without a testosterone blocker, experiencing hot flushes and body aches.

The amendment introduced penalties for forcing someone to assume a transgender identity through surgical, chemical or hormonal procedures. Authorities say the changes are meant to better protect vulnerable groups by strengthening penalties for exploitation, forced identity and trafficking.