Ramaswami: On April 18, while the whole country was under a lockdown to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment uploaded on its website the draft rules for the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act. Responses from the public are to be received by April 30. The Act had been passed in December 2019, after the 2014 NALSA (National Legal Services Authority of India) judgment by the Supreme Court upheld the dignity of the transgender community and granted to them the status of a third gender that was backward and marginalised, in need of special protection. The fact that the Act took so long to pass after the 2014 judgment is significant in itself.