Trans and nonbinary people cannot access abortion safely in India. Now, the growing anti-choice movement is making matters worse for everyone.
Surja*, a Dalit trans nonbinary artist, was 19 years old when they found themselves at a private hospital in the Park Street area of Kolkata, seeking an abortion. They had found out about their pregnancy a week ago, in early November 2019. Standing in the hospital corridor, Surja remembers being consumed with shame.
The shame was twofold. The pregnancy was the result of a relationship with a partner they considered abusive. It also challenged their sense of selfhood as a trans masc nonbinary person. “Being pregnant made it impossible for me to see myself as anything but a woman,” Surja told me. In a fit of anger, Sujra had hit their stomach with an iron rod and cried. The only thing they knew for sure at that time was that they needed to get an abortion as soon as possible.
Although abortions are legal in India, the law governing them doesn’t recognise queer-trans identities and is written entirely from a cis-hetero-patriarchal perspective, said Vinitha Jayaprakashan, a queer Bahujan woman who independently researches sexual and reproductive health rights. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act of 1971 frames abortion as an issue that affects only cis-women, Vinitha added.
The MTP Act allows women to get an abortion within 20 weeks into their pregnancy for reasons other than maternal health and foetal diseases, and within 24 weeks in cases involving rape, incest, widowhood or divorce, for women with disability, and minors. Indian law is relatively more progressive in comparison to many other countries, where, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global legal advocacy organisation that advances reproductive rights, the most common gestational limit is 12 weeks to terminate a pregnancy.
According to some media reports, single unmarried women and queer-trans people, especially trans masc people, often face discrimination by hospital staff when they try to access abortion. Given the abortion law doesn’t specifically address queer trans people, medical colleges rarely discuss or train their students in making abortion inclusive for all. This lack of training makes hospitals and clinics a daunting and unsafe space for queer trans people considering abortion.
“Anybody with a uterus gets impacted by abortion rights, be it AFAB [Assigned Female at Birth], nonbinary people, trans masculine people, or people with intersex variations,” pointed out Aayaan, a trans masc reproductive rights advocate currently affiliated with Pune Queer Collective.
Glaring lack of data on non-cis-women abortion care seekers and their experiences in India makes it even harder to address the problem.
A 2023 study conducted by the Transgender Welfare Equity and Empowerment Trust (TWEET) Foundation, in collaboration with the Transmen Collective, Drexel University, and the Population Council surveyed 377 trans men across 22 states and union territories in India, and found that 33% of respondents avoided accessing healthcare altogether for fear of being mistreated.
Surja was lucky. Their friend Chitra* who had accessed abortion earlier connected them to a doctor in the Kolkata hospital. Surja said while the doctor treated them well, the nurses at the hospital were rude and judgemental. When Surja handed over her prescription to a nurse at the billing desk, the nurse snidely remarked, “Tomader moto meyeder o hoy naki?” (‘Girls’ like you also go through this?).
The lack of understanding in the medical fraternity about queer trans identities and that they might also need to access abortion was one of the key findings in a series of interviews that the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership (ASAP), a regional safe abortion rights network conducted with both queer-trans individuals and abortion care providers in India, Pakistan, and Nepal in 2020. The network was trying to understand the challenges faced by both parties in accessing and providing abortion services. Nandini Majumder, assistant coordinator at ASAP, told me that in the interviews, healthcare workers said that their medical curriculum is based on patriarchal thoughts and ideas that never speak of gender beyond the binary of male and female.
Nandini added that even when healthcare providers were willing to support queer-trans people, they often lacked the skills to do so, since they were not trained in healthcare approaches that are inclusive of queer-trans needs. “This issue is not limited to one hospital or one doctor but represents a larger systemic failure to provide safe abortions,” said Nandini.
In Nandini’s view, while the lack of empathy in healthcare workers restricting access to safe abortion services is concerning, the growing anti-abortion advocacy across the country also further jeopardises safe abortion services for all, including queer-trans service seekers.
Souvik Pyne, a reproductive justice activist with CommonHealth, an activist network that works on reproductive and sexual health told me that in 2024 they conducted a media scoping study—yet to be published publicly—that identified “at least eight anti-choice entities” attempting to influence public opinion on abortion in India. Pyne chose not to reveal the names of those organisations and networks to avoid giving them undue attention, especially considering that some missionary or Christian organisations are already facing significant oppression in the current political climate. Anti-choice is a term that describes people and networks who believe that pregnant persons should be denied the right to choose an abortion. Anti-choice advocates often describe themselves as “pro-life.”
“For the media scoping, the keywords we initially focused on were primarily related to abortion. Had we also included keywords tied to queer identities, we might have identified the overlap more strongly. So, that’s a disclaimer—it’s a limitation in our research approach.” Souvik further shared, “Wherever we found discourse that was anti-SRHR [ Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights] or anti-abortion, we delved deeper into those organisations, which were mostly religious institutions.”
What’s also concerning is that anti-choice advocates have strategically adopted a human rights framework to bolster their anti-abortion stance, Vinitha and Ragini Bordoloi, wrote for CommonHealth. Anti-choice advocates argue that “life begins at conception,” thereby framing abortion as a violation of the “rights of the foetus,” they wrote. Vinitha and Ragini have worked on Fòs Feminista’s “Feminist Narrative” Project—an international alliance for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.
Vinitha told me that there has been a rise of anti-choice narratives and movements in India following the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, a landmark legal ruling that constitutionally protected abortion rights in the US for almost 50 years. In August 2022, an opinion piece in Knowledge magazine argued how the ramifications of this reversal will be felt across the globe. The United States, as a leading funder of global health programs, can make a tremendous impact on people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and strengthen anti-abortion advocates, stated the piece.
Agreeing with the arguments made in the Knowledge magazine piece, Souvik reflected on the persistent presence of anti-choice groups in various forms in India. “There have been several cases filed in the high courts and even the Supreme Court against the MTP Act to ban abortion services completely. But it’s crucial to consider who we are defining as anti-choice or anti-rights groups. Are they only those who outrightly condemn abortion as murder, or do they include those who strategically exclude abortion from the reproductive health conversations? Even activists working under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, who equate all abortions with sex-selective practices, fall into this spectrum. Depending on where we draw the line, anti-choice sentiment has been present—whether proactive or inadvertent—for decades in this country.”
Vinitha said that it’s not just abortion that anti-choice groups are targeting. “Anything outside the purview of a sacred marriage, where sex is only for procreation, is dismissed. Queer-trans realities fall outside of this framework and are particularly targeted.”
Surja*, a Dalit trans nonbinary artist, was 19 years old when they found themselves at a private hospital in the Park Street area of Kolkata, seeking an abortion. They had found out about their pregnancy a week ago, in early November 2019. Standing in the hospital corridor, Surja remembers being consumed with shame.
The shame was twofold. The pregnancy was the result of a relationship with a partner they considered abusive. It also challenged their sense of selfhood as a trans masc nonbinary person. “Being pregnant made it impossible for me to see myself as anything but a woman,” Surja told me. In a fit of anger, Sujra had hit their stomach with an iron rod and cried. The only thing they knew for sure at that time was that they needed to get an abortion as soon as possible.
Although abortions are legal in India, the law governing them doesn’t recognise queer-trans identities and is written entirely from a cis-hetero-patriarchal perspective, said Vinitha Jayaprakashan, a queer Bahujan woman who independently researches sexual and reproductive health rights. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act of 1971 frames abortion as an issue that affects only cis-women, Vinitha added.
The MTP Act allows women to get an abortion within 20 weeks into their pregnancy for reasons other than maternal health and foetal diseases, and within 24 weeks in cases involving rape, incest, widowhood or divorce, for women with disability, and minors. Indian law is relatively more progressive in comparison to many other countries, where, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global legal advocacy organisation that advances reproductive rights, the most common gestational limit is 12 weeks to terminate a pregnancy.
According to some media reports, single unmarried women and queer-trans people, especially trans masc people, often face discrimination by hospital staff when they try to access abortion. Given the abortion law doesn’t specifically address queer trans people, medical colleges rarely discuss or train their students in making abortion inclusive for all. This lack of training makes hospitals and clinics a daunting and unsafe space for queer trans people considering abortion.
“Anybody with a uterus gets impacted by abortion rights, be it AFAB [Assigned Female at Birth], nonbinary people, trans masculine people, or people with intersex variations,” pointed out Aayaan, a trans masc reproductive rights advocate currently affiliated with Pune Queer Collective.
Glaring lack of data on non-cis-women abortion care seekers and their experiences in India makes it even harder to address the problem.
A 2023 study conducted by the Transgender Welfare Equity and Empowerment Trust (TWEET) Foundation, in collaboration with the Transmen Collective, Drexel University, and the Population Council surveyed 377 trans men across 22 states and union territories in India, and found that 33% of respondents avoided accessing healthcare altogether for fear of being mistreated.
Surja was lucky. Their friend Chitra* who had accessed abortion earlier connected them to a doctor in the Kolkata hospital. Surja said while the doctor treated them well, the nurses at the hospital were rude and judgemental. When Surja handed over her prescription to a nurse at the billing desk, the nurse snidely remarked, “Tomader moto meyeder o hoy naki?” (‘Girls’ like you also go through this?).
The lack of understanding in the medical fraternity about queer trans identities and that they might also need to access abortion was one of the key findings in a series of interviews that the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership (ASAP), a regional safe abortion rights network conducted with both queer-trans individuals and abortion care providers in India, Pakistan, and Nepal in 2020. The network was trying to understand the challenges faced by both parties in accessing and providing abortion services. Nandini Majumder, assistant coordinator at ASAP, told me that in the interviews, healthcare workers said that their medical curriculum is based on patriarchal thoughts and ideas that never speak of gender beyond the binary of male and female.
Nandini added that even when healthcare providers were willing to support queer-trans people, they often lacked the skills to do so, since they were not trained in healthcare approaches that are inclusive of queer-trans needs. “This issue is not limited to one hospital or one doctor but represents a larger systemic failure to provide safe abortions,” said Nandini.
In Nandini’s view, while the lack of empathy in healthcare workers restricting access to safe abortion services is concerning, the growing anti-abortion advocacy across the country also further jeopardises safe abortion services for all, including queer-trans service seekers.
Souvik Pyne, a reproductive justice activist with CommonHealth, an activist network that works on reproductive and sexual health told me that in 2024 they conducted a media scoping study—yet to be published publicly—that identified “at least eight anti-choice entities” attempting to influence public opinion on abortion in India. Pyne chose not to reveal the names of those organisations and networks to avoid giving them undue attention, especially considering that some missionary or Christian organisations are already facing significant oppression in the current political climate. Anti-choice is a term that describes people and networks who believe that pregnant persons should be denied the right to choose an abortion. Anti-choice advocates often describe themselves as “pro-life.”
“For the media scoping, the keywords we initially focused on were primarily related to abortion. Had we also included keywords tied to queer identities, we might have identified the overlap more strongly. So, that’s a disclaimer—it’s a limitation in our research approach.” Souvik further shared, “Wherever we found discourse that was anti-SRHR [ Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights] or anti-abortion, we delved deeper into those organisations, which were mostly religious institutions.”
What’s also concerning is that anti-choice advocates have strategically adopted a human rights framework to bolster their anti-abortion stance, Vinitha and Ragini Bordoloi, wrote for CommonHealth. Anti-choice advocates argue that “life begins at conception,” thereby framing abortion as a violation of the “rights of the foetus,” they wrote. Vinitha and Ragini have worked on Fòs Feminista’s “Feminist Narrative” Project—an international alliance for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.
Vinitha told me that there has been a rise of anti-choice narratives and movements in India following the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, a landmark legal ruling that constitutionally protected abortion rights in the US for almost 50 years. In August 2022, an opinion piece in Knowledge magazine argued how the ramifications of this reversal will be felt across the globe. The United States, as a leading funder of global health programs, can make a tremendous impact on people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and strengthen anti-abortion advocates, stated the piece.
Agreeing with the arguments made in the Knowledge magazine piece, Souvik reflected on the persistent presence of anti-choice groups in various forms in India. “There have been several cases filed in the high courts and even the Supreme Court against the MTP Act to ban abortion services completely. But it’s crucial to consider who we are defining as anti-choice or anti-rights groups. Are they only those who outrightly condemn abortion as murder, or do they include those who strategically exclude abortion from the reproductive health conversations? Even activists working under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, who equate all abortions with sex-selective practices, fall into this spectrum. Depending on where we draw the line, anti-choice sentiment has been present—whether proactive or inadvertent—for decades in this country.”
Vinitha said that it’s not just abortion that anti-choice groups are targeting. “Anything outside the purview of a sacred marriage, where sex is only for procreation, is dismissed. Queer-trans realities fall outside of this framework and are particularly targeted.”
Beginning 2022, the same year when Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US, anti-choice groups have organised ‘March for Life’ events on August 10, the date when the MTP Act was passed in 1971. In 2023, the march was organised in Pune. Vinitha, out of curiosity, attended the first march in Delhi that started from Jantar Mantar.
She remembered meeting a couple at the march. They were investment bankers and had four children. Vinitha said that they told her that they were proud of the fact that they had never opted for an abortion. “Kids are god’s blessing. Hence, abortion is a sin,” she recalled them saying. Vinitha also observed that many doctors and lawyers joined the march and strengthened anti-abortion sentiments through their advocacy of anti-choice narratives.
“These [anti-choice] narratives were aimed at the youth, attempting to present them as progressive discussions and claiming to care for all human beings, including queer-trans individuals,” Vinitha explained. However, as the march reached Sacred Heart Cathedral, one of Delhi’s oldest churches, a large red standee caught her attention. Put up by the organisers on the church premises, it had the word “homosexuality” prominently printed on it in bold font, accompanied by queerphobic messages like, “It is crucially important to understand that saying a person has a particular inclination that is disordered is not to say that the person as a whole is disordered.” The poster also promoted “chaste living” as a means to overcome “disordered human desires.”
One of the participants in the 2024 March for Life held in Thrissur was Eva Pro-Life Movement, a Mumbai-based organisation. They shared posts on Instagram about the march and their exhibition. One image featured a banner with the phrase “Love Is Not Love” written in rainbow colours. In a collaboration post, the caption read, “The exhibition... provided resources on how to overcome the chain of masturbation and pornography, and reinforced the truth that one man and one woman is the foundation of the family.”
A report titled The Global Impact of the Dobbs Decision on Abortion Laws, Policies, Legislation, Narratives, and Movements by Fòs Feminista highlights how anti-rights actors sought to impose a worldview rooted in anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQIA+ narratives, grounded in a narrow, patriarchal morality. The report notes, “Although this (anti-rights) mobilisation was deeply rooted in Christian ideologies, these actors (anti-rights advocates) also aligned with conservative elements in other religions. For example, Family Watch International and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation signed a memorandum of cooperation to protect the “family unit as an institution” and to coordinate efforts against “values and beliefs” that they perceived as undermining it.” Another report, Pulling Back the Cover: The Roots, Relationships, and Rise of Family Watch International, detailed how, in 2023, the anti-LGBTQIA+ parliamentary convening in Uganda received support from Family Watch International, a US-based organisation.
In India, in March 2023, Samvardhinee Nyas, an affiliate of the women’s wing of the RSS [an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation], organised an event at Jawaharlal Nehru University as part of their Garbha Sanskar [pregnancy culture] campaign. Times of India reported that Shweta Dengre, one of the doctors who spoke at the event remarked, “If the mother already has a son as her firstborn and expects her second born to be a girl, but gives birth to a boy, then the child could grow up to be homosexual.” The event received quite a bit of criticism online by queer rights groups. Yes We Exist India, an awareness-raising community platform for the LGBTQIA+ community, flagged the content as “Dangerous Homophobic Medical Misinformation.”
“In my observation and as history teaches us, whenever sexual and reproductive health rights come under attack, it’s never isolated,” said Nandini. “They attack identities, orientations—they attack our access to services, rights, everything.”
The rise of anti-choice movements—and the queerphobia that is an inherent part of them—is concerning for queer-trans individuals at large and abortion seekers among them in particular. But “anti-rights uprisings aren’t the most pressing issue to keep focusing on,” said Abhiti, a genderqueer researcher specialising in reproductive health rights. “Rather, we need to continue advocating and addressing the persistent lack of access to abortion rights, and explore how we can improve that aspect.” Eight abortion and queer rights activists I interviewed emphasised that rather than giving importance to anti-choice rhetoric by platforming and amplifying it, it is crucial for the abortion rights and queer-trans movements to unite and advocate for abortion rights for everyone, including queer-trans people.
In 2023, Zahad, a 24-year-old trans man from Kerala, received widespread media attention due to his pregnancy while in a relationship with Ziya Paval, a 21-year-old trans woman. The news sparked extensive discussion within the trans masc community, Satvik, a trans masc rights activist and co-founder of Mysfit Trans Youth Foundation, an organisation that collectivises trans youth and allies to accelerate socio-economic inclusion for the trans community, told me. Many questioned whether Zahad should have openly discussed his pregnancy, Satvik elaborated, because the worry was that trans men like Zahad could then be perceived as “women”, which could result in body dysphoria and feed into the societal stereotype that refuses to recognise trans men as “real men”.
“This internalised transphobia, compounded by feelings of dysphoria and shame, often discourages trans masc and nonbinary individuals from openly talking about their experiences with pregnancy and advocating for their abortion rights,” said Satvik. Acknowledging this as a complex landscape, Satvik added that more conversations on sexual and reproductive health rights of queer-trans people will help make policies and their implementation more inclusive and accessible for all.
All the people I interviewed for this story told me that finding queer-trans people in India to speak on the record about accessing abortion care would be extremely difficult. They were right. Of all the people I reached out to for this story, Surja was the only one willing to be quoted about their experiences. Most others said they were uncomfortable recounting their experience. This understandable silence also means that empirical data is hard to come by, which in turn weakens the push for policy that is inclusive of queer-trans realities.
According to Satvik, activism around the trans masc identity is a relatively recent phenomenon in India. “In 2017, some of us came together and began organising trans masc people and addressing our issues. We initiated projects under the TWEET Foundation, which helped increase our visibility,” he explained. TWEET foundation or Transgender Welfare Equity and Empowerment Trust Foundation is a transgender-led community organisation in India. At this moment, Satvik noted, the movement around trans masc identities is primarily focused on advocating for basic needs such as livelihood, medical, legal, social, and educational rights. Reproductive health, including issues related to abortion, has not yet become a priority.
But slowly some shifts are beginning to take place. For example, on August 1, 2024, the Centre for Justice Law & Society (CJLS) at Jindal Global University and the Misfyt Trans Youth Organisation co-organised an e-consultation. The discussion explored the possibility of trans masc people and organisations joining petitions on abortion rights in the Supreme Court to highlight the criminalisation framework for abortion. Dipika Jain, Director of CJLS told me, “We didn’t want to approach the court just as lawyers. We aimed to build a consensus, particularly with other movements.” CJLS began holding independent movement meetings with various groups to understand the collective stance on abortion rights. It conducted around ten meetings with top lawyers in the country, individuals working in intersectional movements, members of the sex workers, Dalit women, and trans rights movements. “The idea was to assess the risks involved in going to court and, if we did proceed, to ensure that our petition was nuanced and well-considered,” said Dipika.
While the discussion about abortion rights of trans and disabled individuals occasionally comes up in activist spaces, these conversations are dominated by cis-savarna feminists who rarely extend beyond their own concerns, said Chahek, a queer-disability and abortion rights activist, who co-founded Radical Action for Disability Advocacy towards Equity (RADIATE). “These discussions feel superficial and tokenistic.”
Abhiti, who has participated in various spaces where reproductive health is discussed, told me, “In these spaces, you might see a couple of transmasculine people or perhaps queer women, but rarely trans feminine persons. The discussions can be reductive, with transmasculine people being reduced to their female bodies. And trans feminine people to their male bodies, leading to their exclusion from the conversation. We don’t yet know the full contribution queer-trans people’s participation could bring to the abortion rights movement, because that narrative has never truly been heard.”
That is why Aayaan argues that the cause of abortion justice can be advanced by listening to and learning from trans people about their needs. Consider for instance, the ongoing advocacy efforts by some activists to make the MTP Act’s language more inclusive of queer-trans identities and reduce the stigma and transphobia among doctors and legal frameworks. Aayaan believes that merely doing away with one term may not be enough—many trans individuals may feel uncomfortable referring to their genitals as a “vagina”, for example. Aayaan suggested that holistic discussions around language issues with trans individuals could make abortions less triggering and dysphoric.
“But the onus of speaking of abortion rights for trans nonbinary people shouldn’t be only on trans people. The entire queer-trans movement should include abortion justice on the agenda [which is currently not the case],” said Aayaan.
Last year, one of Surja’s seniors from Jadavpur University reached out, informing her that a friend, a single cis-woman, was travelling to Kolkata to undergo an abortion. They asked if Surja could accompany her. Surja picked her up from the hotel and took her to the clinic. Reflecting on the experience, Surja said, “I was thinking about both my own experience and hers. I know it’s difficult for women too, and I was glad I could be there to support her. In the end, we all need to be there for each other.”
Names with * have been changed to protect the identity of the person.
Sudipta Das (they/them) is an anti-caste queer feminist practitioner, gender expert, and writer, with experience of working on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), queer rights, communications, and advocacy. They write on key issues of caste, queerness, health, GBV, and culture.
Visvak is a writer and editor based in Goa.
Jose (she/they) is a non-binary illustrator from Kerala whose work highlights personal stories marked by gender, body experiences, and their South Indian heritage. While not lost in their sketchbook, they can be found devouring all things camp and horror.
Ankur Paliwal (he/him) is an independent journalist, and founder and managing editor of queerbeat
