· 'Women’s and trans rights are not in conflict': Feminist alliance slams WDI petition before Supreme Court
The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), a pan-Indian network of progressive feminist organizations and activists, has issued a strong statement condemning a petition filed by Women’s Declaration International (WDI) India in the Supreme Court. The feminist collective is demanding the immediate repeal of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, and is pushing back against what it calls a "dangerous and false binary" being created between the rights of cisgender and transgender women.
In a statement, ALIFA reaffirmed the unity of cisgender women and transgender persons in the struggle against patriarchy. The organization stated it fully stands with the transgender community, which has been protesting the "deeply discriminatory" 2026 Amendment Act on the streets and in the courts since March.
A False Binary and a Colonial Hangover
The statement takes direct aim at the WDI petition, which seeks to limit legal recognition of gender identity to "biological sex" and challenges the right to change gender markers on official documents. ALIFA argues that this petition seeks to reopen questions of gender self-determination that were settled by the Supreme Court in the landmark NALSA vs UOI (2014) case.
"ALIFA strongly opposed the 2026 Amendment when it was introduced and passed," the statement read. "We restate our firm opposition to these amendments in the light of new developments before the Supreme Court, in particular a highly problematic and transphobic petition by Women's Declaration International (WDI) India."
ALIFA noted that WDI was only formally registered in India in September 2026, right before the petition was filed, and accused the UK-based organization of importing a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" (TERF) agenda.
"This move is a historical re-enactment of how the British enshrined transphobia in law and governance as part of its engagement with caste patriarchy on the Indian subcontinent," ALIFA stated. "It is the ongoing asymmetry of wealth and power between the UK and its former colonies which enables organizations such as WDI to intervene to try to restore colonial-style transphobia into Indian law."
Patriarchy, Not Biology, is the Root Cause
The feminist alliance dismantled the WDI petition's central argument that Indian law should frame protections based solely on "biological sex."
"The WDI petition's central sleight of hand is to turn transgender people's recognition by the state, and indeed their very existence, into a problem for women's rights," the statement read. ALIFA asserted that feminist movements have long upheld that women are oppressed by a social system—patriarchy—rather than innate biological characteristics.
"The argument in favour of recognizing only 'biological sex' in law is a deeply harmful one that reverses important legal gains for all women. It seeks to reverse how the Indian legislature and jurisprudence have expanded the constitutionally protected category of sex to mean gender, gender expression, gender roles, and gender identity."
Furthermore, ALIFA linked the 2026 Amendment Act to Brahminical worldviews, stating the Act "reproduces a Brahminical worldview that insists on the primacy and unchangeability of characteristics one is supposedly born with—specifically gender, caste, and disability."
Solidarity Against Gender-Based Oppression
Addressing the petition's claim that trans women pose a "sexual threat" to cisgender women in sex-segregated spaces, ALIFA called this argument "fundamentally sexist and bio-essentialist." They noted that cisgender women face violence even in same-sex spaces within a casteist and majoritarian society, and that exclusion should not be painted as protection.
"Women's rights and transgender rights are not competing claims, rather mutually reinforcing assertions against patriarchy," the collective stated.
ALIFA joins a growing list of women’s rights organizations, including the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) and the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), in expressing unconditional solidarity with transgender, intersex, non-binary, and gender-diverse persons.
Demands
In its concluding section, ALIFA laid out a series of demands, including:
1. The repeal of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026.
2. A critical review of the "inherently unconstitutional arguments" in the WDI petition.
3. The affirmation of the legal and constitutional right of every person to self-determination of gender identity without discriminatory medical or administrative gatekeeping.
4. The rejection of attempts to re-install "biological sex" as the basis for women's rights and protections.
"We stand in unflinching solidarity with all transgender, intersex, non-binary and gender-diverse persons in their struggle for equality, dignity, self-determination and the full enjoyment of their constitutional and human rights," the statement concluded.
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