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CISF Constable Says He Had His Sex Changed For Love Because Gay Marriages Aren't Allowed In India

And the CISF has accepted him as a male officer.
DIBYANGSHU SARKAR via Getty Images

At a time when the LGBTQ community is fighting for acceptance, CISF has recognised a constable, who joined the force in 2008 as a woman, as male.

However, this has not come easy. It was six years after the sex change operation and four years of bureaucratic debate that the decision was taken.

The Hindustan Times reports that the constable decided to go under a sex change operation because he wanted to marry a woman colleague, but couldn't do so because of the same sex marriage laws in the country.

The newspaper report suggests that he had to do a lot of convincing before the decision came about with a volley of medical tests and physical exercises that only male officers are put through.

And his decision to go through a sex-change was not without criticism of colleagues.

He tells the newspaper, "Had same-sex marriage been allowed in India I would have not undergone sex-change. I knew society will make fun of me but I was ready to face the challenge."

However he said he always considered himself as male.

An archaic law from the British-era -Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code -- makes same-sex marriages illegal in India.

The Delhi High Court had de-criminalised it in 2009, but the Supreme Court had overturned the ruling in 2013 saying it was a matter to be taken up by the Parliament and not the judiciary.

While this had happened in during the UPA rule, Sonia Gandhi had said, "I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has reversed the previous Delhi high court ruling on the issue of gay rights. The high court had wisely removed an archaic, repressive and unjust law that infringed on the basic human rights enshrined in our constitution."

However, the UPA dragged its feet on the legislation and nothing was done about it during its regime.

Meanwhile, the NDA has been mostly silent about the issue, with some ministers making adverse comments about it.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had called it a genetic disorder. And while law minister Sadananda Gowda seemed to have said that the government could look into scrapping the archaic law, it was dismissed by BJP leaders.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.