Horizon In India only way a transgender person can marry cis gender (female) is by changing the gender as male in identification documents and subsequently he may marry a person from other opposite gender.
In Arun Kumar and Another v. Inspector General of Registration and Ors. WP(MD)No.4125 of 2019, madras high court interpreted the word “bride” under S. 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act and held that it includes transgender persons as well. Hitherto, a “bride” was a woman that too only on the day of her wedding. But with this judgement, a new ground has been established. The Madras HC relied on the three most important judgements for LGBTQ+ rights: the NALSA judgement[9], the K.S. Puttuswamy Case[10] (privacy under A. 21) and the Navtej Singh Johar judgement.[11],[12] The Court opined that they were only stating the obvious, and that they did not interpret anything additionally, since the right to marriage for transgender persons has always been present in this statute. This interpretation has paved way for the transgender community to lobby for their marriage rights.
Despite this judgement, the government has included no provisions related to the marriage of transgenders in the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill that has been introduced by it as a protection mechanism of the trans community and aiming to pave the way for a more progressive legal system.
