SC notice to Centre on PIL against unregulated sex-change surgeries of intersex children

New Delhi [India], April 8 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a plea claiming that intersex children are subjected to unregulated sex-change surgeries.

A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra sought a response from the central government and asked Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati to assist the court in the matter.

The plea filed through advocates Astha Deep and Sujeet Ranjan stated that people with intersex characteristics have been facing various challenges due to the usage of the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably.

Intersex people are individuals born with a combination of male and female biological traits that do not fall under the binary notions of male or female bodies.

The plea filed by one Gopi Shankar M said that there is no uniform policy across the country with respect to children with non-binary sex identities and most of the hospitals are clueless regarding how to deal with such a situation.

Recently, in the past one and a half years, the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH), Madurai, Tamil Nadu, performed surgeries on 40 intersex newborns and children with ambiguous genitalia, the plea stated.

The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) sought direction to the government to consider enactment of a legislative mechanism to regulate medical intervention with intersex infants and children.

The plea sought direction for making provisions for recording the births and deaths of ‘intersex’ persons.

It further asked for making provisions for the issuance of identity cards carrying both ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ identities separately and for the inclusion of ‘intersex’ persons in the Census.

The petition added, “Most of the States are issuing the ID card of either male and female or transgender identity. This hides the data of many transgender persons and persons with intersex variations.”

“Issue an appropriate direction or against the Respondents (Centre) for the inclusion of ‘intersex’ people in schools, colleges, government and private jobs, adoption and care homes at par with a male or female candidate and also consider reservations for intersex people, they being, a marginalised class,” the petition stated.