Adoption Rights in India: the Latest Playground for Gender Ideologues

It was the early 2000s; almost every liberal newspaper/media house had finalised their ‘mother’s day’ piece. It was unlike any other year, for it was for the first time, a pre-op trans identified man was on the front page as the quintessential Indian mother.

Coupled with a tear jerking saccharine video told from the daughter’s point of view, Vicks (the American brand owned by P&G) laid the liberal gender agenda on thick. I remember it being shared so widely by everyone as a matter of pride. “Wow, what a woman,” said a whatsapp forward by an acquaintance, forcing my eyeballs to roll over to the back of my skull.

The story was that of a man who goes by the name Gauri Sawant. A pre-op trans identified man who “adopted” a girl born to an HIV-positive prostituted woman. The fate of such girls born to mothers like these is often left at the hands of pimps who force orphaned/abandoned girl children back to ‘sex work’. Sawant has since been lauded as a trailblazer in the ‘motherhood’ department for he has gone on to lobby for changes in adoption rights of ‘transgender parents’.

This is a slap in the face for women undergoing near death experiences during childbirth due to poverty and other dire circumstances with little or no access to safe pregnancies, or abortions in many cases. Not to mention the dangers of carrying a baby to term, the delivery, and the emotional roller coaster of postpartum even under the best of medical care.

In an interview he said: “… she’s given me everything – the title of “mother” which is one of the truest manifestations of womanhood in my journey from boy to girl. On this Mother’s Day, I would like to tell everyone that parenting need not be gender specific. Further, motherhood is a feeling. I am very happy to live this experience.” Elsewhere, Sawant has maintained that he knows he won’t be “accepted as a woman” because of his body, even if he “undergoes painful procedures,” making it clear his male anatomy is still intact. In an extremely vague sentence, an interviewer described him thus: “Gauri Sawant, born as Ganesh, decided not to change to match her (sic) sex, but to change to match her (sic) identity.”

Emboldened by the limelight he received after the Vicks commercial, he lapped up every opportunity to claim that motherhood had nothing to do with being female, and that a mere feeling of womanhood would suffice. “My daughter taught me that you don’t need to have a uterus or give birth to a baby, motherhood is all about caring and loving a child. I was happy when people started recognising me for my motherhood,” he said in a talk. That Sawant could stop a girl from being sold as a prostitute is commendable; but this deed does not make him a woman, far less a mother.

This is a slap in the face for women undergoing near death experiences during childbirth due to poverty and other dire circumstances with little or no access to safe pregnancies, or abortions in many cases. Not to mention the dangers of carrying a baby to term, the delivery, and the emotional roller coaster of postpartum even under the best of medical care.

Existing laws

Adoption in India is governed by the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 and the Juvenile Justice Act 2000. Under HAMA, adoption can be undertaken by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and other religions governed by Hindu Law. The JJ Act opens the option of adoption to any person regardless of their religion, with the criteria being through the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).

CARA is the nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is mandated to promote and facilitate in-country adoptions and regulate inter-country adoptions, as the Central Authority of Government of India.

CARA states an array of prerequisites that ought to be met by parents interested in adopting children, all of which prioritise the welfare of children. One of the rules states that a single female can adopt a child of any gender (sic) but a single male shall not be eligible to adopt a girl child. For every potential adoption, a social worker is assigned to the case to run background checks etc. It is after a rigorous verification that a child is deemed legally adopted. In theory, this procedure is quite water tight.

Ideally, men like Sawant who has “adopted” a child should be scrutinised based CARA’s mandates. Regardless of his ‘gender identity’, a female child should not be in the custody of a male.

CARA has also clearly stated that children become ready for adoption when they are declared legally free for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee. Ideally, men like Sawant who has “adopted” a child should be scrutinised based on both these mandates. Regardless of his ‘gender identity’, a female child should not be in the custody of a male.

Despite laws, be it due to the failure of India’s criminal justice system, the neo-misogynistic woke takeover, or the sheer apathy of the authorities, these mandates aren’t always upheld. Not to mention India’s population and a corrupt government that turns a blind eye when cases slip through the cracks.

Pushback on existing laws

It wasn’t until 2018 that homosexuality was decriminalised. The judgement passed by the Supreme Court of India was just the first leg of the long-drawn battle for social legitimacy by the community. Issues such as same sex marriage, inheritance of property, and civil rights are yet to receive legal sanction. Similarly, Transgender Persons (Protection Of Rights) Act, 2019 was passed soon after to provide protections for ‘transgender’ people and their welfare.

In an attempt to pin adoption and surrogacy to LGBT civil rights, activists and media are claiming that denying these amounts to a violation under the aforementioned laws. Though archaic, the lobby groups don’t seem to be spending enough on legalising gay marriages, which might reduce the number of ‘trans surgeries’ as per testimonies of trans identifying women. Instead, there is an active undertaking to assist trans identifying men in gaining access to women’s spaces and rights.

Essentially, the lobby groups have managed to set legal precedence to ‘trans’ adoption rights by enabling men to self identify as ‘women’, thereby violating the rules laid out by CARA that a males, in the absence of female partners, cannot adopt a girl child.

In a recent case, the Allahabad High Court passed its order on a petition filed by a ‘transgender’ couple seeking adoption. The court observed that a marriage certificate isn’t a prerequisite for adopting a child, as HAMA, under Sections 7 and 8, allows even single parents to adopt. The sex of the child this ‘trans’ couple wanted to adopt is not mentioned. Either way, it seems reckless to  readily circumvent carefully thought out policies for the sake of inclusion and so called ‘trans rights’ with no demarcated stipulations.

Essentially, the lobby groups have managed to set legal precedence to ‘trans’ adoption rights by enabling men to self identify as ‘women’, thereby violating the rules laid out by CARA that males, in the absence of female partners, cannot adopt a girl child. Now, all a gay or ‘trans’ couple need to do is proclaim ‘a feeling of womanhood’ and, based on the outcome of ‘Rina Kinnar And Another v. State of UP’ case, they’ll receive a clean chit to adopt a child of either sex.

Crimes that have been sidelined while glorifying ‘trans mommy’

Illegal adoptions are common among the ‘transgender’ community. In many Indian states, people who are not in a position to take care of their children leave them with the ‘transgender’ community. Adoption is also common there, often with apparently positive outcomes (as illustrated by the Vicks campaign).  However, since there is no legal validity for such adoptions, government bodies like CARA must take it upon themselves to scrutinise these informal arrangements.  One reason why CARA must do due diligence is India’s ongoing problem of bonded labour and human trafficking.

The ‘trans’ lobbying energies tread so closely to the liberal demands for the legal legitimacy of industries which actively exploit women like ‘sex work’ and surrogacy.  It is therefore highly irresponsible of the Indian media to glorify a man as a ‘mother’!

Several groups that operate out of shady alleys seek out gullible families from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. These trafficking rings invariably have close ties to the rich and influential men, paedophiles, who ensure that such a market remains operational.  The traffickers have been as busy as ever during the coronavirus outbreak.  As per data submitted by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in 2020, as many as 30,071 children were orphaned, lost a parent or were abandoned mostly due to the pandemic. There were social media posts claiming children are up for adoption and unscrupulous criminals used this as bait to make a quick buck.

Anurag Kundu, the chairperson for the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights has been tracking these people online and contacted the perpetrators. “One of my staff members called the number in the Facebook page, and they quoted over 7000 USD for one child,” he said.

The market for trafficked minors is not just fuelled by childless couples eager to start families. India is also plagued by the existence of fetishistic men. These men, given the opportunity, exploit the vulnerability of boys for sexual motives. In 2020, a 13-year-old in Delhi was forced to undergo “sex change surgery” and raped multiple times. The accused repeatedly abused the boy and “forced him to beg at traffic signals as a transgender,” according to the Delhi Commission for Women.

Arun Kumar from Sahara Group, an NGO that works with eunuchs, says what the statistics don’t reveal is how kids and youths are kidnapped for prostitution. He said “Eunuch gurus and their paid agents get these kidnapped youngsters addicted to opium and then initiate them into homosexuality. Eventually, they are castrated in a gory and risky operation.

Feminists like me aren’t standing in the way of anybody’s civil rights, but we are profoundly against an entitled ideology that breeds misogyny and contempt for hard fought women’s sex-based rights.

The ‘transgender’ lobby for rights includes the insistence on access to (near non-existent) female only spaces.  In addition to this, their lobbying energies tread so closely to the liberal demands for the legal legitimacy of industries which actively exploit women like ‘sex work’ and surrogacy.  It is therefore highly irresponsible of the Indian media to glorify a man as a ‘mother’!

India, like most countries in the Global South, has sold itself to the woke ideology; there are a few pockets of opposition but they are motivated by religion and fascism. Indian liberals are in complete support of the ‘gender’ cult. This takeover happened gradually, but because corporations have sensed a market in this ideology, it has picked up pace in the last five years.

It goes without saying that feminists like me aren’t standing in the way of anybody’s civil rights, but we are profoundly against an entitled ideology that breeds misogyny and contempt for hard fought women’s sex-based rights. The Women And Child Development Ministry has recently allocated Rs. 252 billion for the welfare of women and children – but can they define what a woman is?

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