THE ROLE OF POLICY ADVOCACY IN TRANSGENDER RIGHTS AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN KARNATAKA
 https://doi.org/10.65725/RPSET/1/3/008

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE, EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY (RPSET)
Volume 1 Issue 3, July – September 2026

Abstract:
Transgender persons in India obtained constitutional recognition through the 2014 National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment, followed by the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. Karnataka was the first Indian state to translate this national framework into a dedicated state policy (2017) and a horizontal employment reservation (2021). This paper reviews peer-reviewed legal, social work, historical, and public-health scholarship, together with primary legal and governmental instruments, to examine how policy advocacy has shaped transgender rights and social inclusion outcomes, with Karnataka as the primary case, and to draw out the implications for professional social work practice at micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Methods: A structured narrative review was conducted using only peer-reviewed journal literature indexed with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and official legal or governmental documents (statutes, court judgments, state policy texts, census data, and central government scheme guidelines). Sources without institutional or peer-review authority were excluded. Results: Karnataka’s 2011 Census recorded 20,266 residents in the ‘other’ gender category, the ninth-highest state total in the country (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, 2011; Dubey & Raj, 2024). The reviewed literature shows a consistent pattern of strong legal recognition combined with weak administrative implementation nationally. A 2026 multicentric study spanning 14 Indian states, including Karnataka, found that only 52.4% of transgender respondents held a transgender identity card and fewer than 20% had updated other official documents, despite near-universal possession of a general identity document (Aggarwal et al., 2026). Legal-empirical research similarly documents uneven state-level compliance with NALSA directives (Poonjatt et al., 2018) and continuing gaps between statutory rights and enforcement (Jain & DasGupta, 2021). A 2018 national human rights study found that 99% of transgender respondents had experienced social rejection (National Human Rights Commission & Kerala Development Society, 2018). Conclusion: Policy advocacy in Karnataka produced measurable legal gains, but the peer-reviewed evidence base indicates that legal recognition alone has not closed the implementation gap in employment, education, and healthcare. Because the gap is concentrated in certification, scheme enrolment, family rejection, and service navigation, it falls substantially within the professional domain of social work, and the paper sets out a micro, mezzo, and macro practice agenda accordingly.

Authors: Ms. Christina G K , Dr. Devata D. Gasti 

Keywords: Transgender rights; policy advocacy; social work practice; Karnataka; NALSA judgment; social inclusion; India.