Succession Rights Of Transgender Persons In India: A Socio-Legal Perspective
- IJLLR Journal
- Jun 30
- 2 min read
Shikha Yadav, Research Scholar, Sharda School of Law, Sharda University
Dr. Aqsa Sikandar Fatima, Assistant Professor, Sharda School of Law, Sharda University
ABSTRACT
Though the constitutionally guaranteed position of transgender persons has been established in India by judiciary and enacted in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, the scope of grant of the same does not cover all aspects of the law, especially in the area of succession and inheritance. The Indian succession law, be it codified by the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, Indian Succession Act, 1925 or through uncodified religious personal laws, is structurally anchored in the assumptions of binary gender. This research conducts a critical socio-legal review of the succession rights of transgenders in the pluralistic legal system in India. It states that the systemic exclusion is perpetuated by the statutory and judicial interpretation language of heteronormative and cisnormativity, which denies transgender people equal access to property and family rights. The research criticizes the disappearance of transgender identities under the regime of the private law and shows how the lack of express legislative inclusion, combined with the social stigma, enables systematic disinheritance, estrangement of the family and legal exclusion. The research, using a doctrinal analysis, with supplementation by judicial ruling, and a comparative international jurisprudence, illustrates that statutory reforms, to include gender-neutral language and acknowledgement of self-perceived gender in succession claims, are necessary. It also argues that the right to inherit is not only a civil or personal right, but a vital aspect of citizenship, dignity, and socioeconomic equality of trans-gender persons. This research demands an intersectional and rights-based law reimagination of succession law to satisfy constitutional pledges of non-discrimination, equality, and substantive justice to the Indian transgender community.
Keywords: Transgender, Succession Rights, Inheritance, Gender Identity, Property Rights, Gender Neutrality, Cisnormativity, Familial Alienation
