In an apartment complex in a quiet corner of Uppal, not far from Hyderabad‘s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Sanihit sits talking to his friend Sai Pallavi over tea. In the three-storey apartment building — home to eight trans people — the conversation turns naturally to the one thing that has been foremost on their minds: the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026.

“I lived through every trauma that I‘d ever had to endure when the Bill passed,“ says 27-year-old Sanihit, a transman and building occupant. “The question was, where do I go from here?“

It‘s a question on the minds of all eight trans people in the building. Introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 13, the law — passed in both Houses of Parliament and securing the President‘s assent in 19 days — does not recognise self-identification as the basis for determining gender. Although it recognises socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani or jogta, and people with variations in characteristics such as primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomes or hormones, it does not recognise categories such as transmen, transwomen, non-binary and gender-queer people.

For transgender people, the law — which critics say was passed in “undue haste without consultations“ — marks an erasure of the very identities they have spent years fighting to keep. In the apartment building, anxiety over the Bill is pervasive, spilling into morning chores, work and dinner-time conversations.

“It undercuts our independence,“ says 30-year-old Anil/Savithri, a non-binary person who, along with their partner Sandy — a gay man — founded the queer rights NGO Mobbera Foundation.

The building is also home to four more trans people besides Sanihit and Anil/Savithri, among them Sai Pallavi and Abhinetri, both transwomen. Here, they have set up homes with their chosen partners. “These are our families now,“ says Anil/Savithri.

It was Anil/Savithri‘s and Sandy‘s love story that led the eight trans people to the apartment. It began when the two met on Facebook in 2014, when they were both in their twenties.

Together, they founded ‘Flash Mobbers‘ — a WhatsApp group for people with diverse gender and sexual identities. The group would eventually become Mobbera.

For Anil/Savithri, it was one of the most memorable periods of their life. “The most unforgettable performance was when we did a flash mob at the gate of Osmania University,“ they say. “A group of us danced and dispersed soon after, but the memory of those days remains with us. Students and parents were supportive. We felt happy.“

Over time, the group evolved — from Flash Mobbers to Mobbers and then Mobbera. “We defined Mobbera as a mob of people ushering in a new era,“ Anil/Savithri says.

In 2015, Mobbera registered itself as an NGO. For those who led it, it felt like a new beginning: the year before, the Supreme Court, in the landmark NALSA vs Union of India judgment, had declared transgender people the ‘third gender‘ — a watershed moment for the trans rights movement.

The years that followed — from the Supreme Court‘s 2018 ruling decriminalising homosexuality and the 2019 law upholding aspects of the NALSA judgment — felt like steady, hard-won progress.

The couple‘s personal life saw changes, too. In 2019, they moved to the current apartment complex, without coming out to the landlord. “He realised that we were a couple only four years later. He was supportive by then,“ Anil/Savithri says. “In the early days, the flat became a harbour for trans people in need of support. We would help others out for one or two days.“

Over time, others joined them in the apartment complex: in 2024, Sai Pallavi and Abhinetri moved into the flat below, and in 2025, Sanihit and his friends — two trans women and two trans men — moved into another flat.

Sai Pallavi, a background verification analyst, speaks about how she came to live here. For this trans woman from Telangana‘s Karimnagar, coming out to her family was not easy. When she did in 2023, the fallout was severe.

“I was taken to doctors and to tantriks to make me a ‘man‘. I eventually ran away from home and went to a friend in Nellore,“ she says.

Soon, she made what felt like her only choice: joining a hijra cultural group. In the rigid guru-chela system, defiance was not tolerated.

“There is no independence. You‘re either into begging, doing badhai (blessing) or doing sex work,“ Sai Pallavi says.

It was when she met Sandy that Pallavi saw her chance to leave. “By then, I had finished my B.Tech in mining engineering. Sandy said I could look for a job,“ she says.

Like many others in the building, Sanihit, who works in account management at a corporate firm in Hyderabad, has a similar story. Originally from a village near Nagpur in Maharashtra, he moved to Hyderabad five years ago in search of the freedom to be himself — something he had long dreamed of.

“I never came across a single transgender person in my village apart from myself,“ Sanihit says.

He has yet to come out to his parents, though he believes they may already know. With his extended family, however, it is different. “They still don‘t know what I look like,“ he says.

For many here, the Bill unfairly divides the trans community into two groups — those who are recognised and those who are not. Many now fear being pushed back into the lives they had tried to escape. “The amendment bill is basically making us go back to that guru-chela culture,“ says Pallavi.

There are other concerns too — from losing jobs to losing transgender identity cards. Abhinetri, a traffic cop, fears for her position. “I‘m worried that because I‘m an independent transwoman, I will be thrown out of the force,“ she says.

Sai Pallavi adds: “The Bill will make it difficult for everyone who has not undergone gender-reassignment surgery to claim that they are trans people. Because of my ill health, I‘ve not undergone the surgery. Will my transgender card be revoked?“

Sanihit, who had been planning to come out through a Pride march in his village, has now put those plans on hold. “After seeing the Pride here in Hyderabad, I wanted to start one in my village, but now I‘m not sure,“ he says.

In their anxiety and confusion, they turn to their only solace — the Mobbera Foundation. But the Act threatens its existence too. The amendment penalises anyone who “kidnaps“ a person and “forces“ them to become transgender. Penalties range from up to 10 years‘ imprisonment for adults to life imprisonment in the case of minors. Members of the community say this could criminalise support systems.

“There are several transgender persons who seek out people within the community to help them in the initial days of coming out. All such people can be prosecuted for years of imprisonment if family members claim they were kidnapped,“ Anil/Savithri says.

Yet, there is some hope. In Delhi, a group of transgender people plan to challenge the Act in court, and the residents in Uppal see that as a way forward.

“We, as a society, have come a long way. Why would we want to go back to troubled, backward times?“ Anil/Savithri asks.