In a significant development related to transgender rights, the Kerala High Court on Monday directed the authorities to change the gender details of the state’s first transgender parents in their child’s birth certificate from ‘mother’ and ‘father’ to just ‘parent’ for both partners.

A single bench of Justice Ziyad Rahman AA passed the order on a petition by Zahhad, a transman (assigned female at birth but identifies as a man) and Ziya Paval, a transwoman (assigned male at birth but identifies as a woman), who are the first openly transgender couple in Kerala.

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“This writ petition is disposed of directing the fifth respondent to issue a birth certificate with the modification by removing the columns of names of father and mother and by incorporating the names of the petitioners as parents without referring to their genders,” the Court said.

The Kozhikode Corporation had earlier issued a birth certificate mentioning Zahhad as the mother and Ziya Paval as the father, along with the term transgender in parentheses. The trans couple objected to this classification, stating that it did not reflect their gender identities accurately.

Following this, they had approached the Kozhikode Corporation to avoid the name of father and mother on the birth certificate, since the biological mother of the child identified herself as a male years ago, and was presently living as male member in the society. However, their request was rejected by the authorities, prompting them to move the High Court for relief.

“Since scientifically there’s some contradiction in the fact that male give birth to a child, the petitioners requested the authorities to avoid the name of father and mother but simply write ‘Parent’ to avoid further embarrassment which the third petitioner (child) would have to face during her lifetime viz. school admission, Adhar Card, PAN Card, Passport and various other documents including job and connected matters,” the transgender couple had explained in their petition.

The denial of such a certificate is a denial of their and their child’s fundamental rights, they added in the petition. Ziya and Zahhad became India’s first transgender parents with the birth of their child in February 2023.