Dismissing Binaries: Unlocking India's Potential for Equity and Inclusivity via Legislative Reform focused on Linguistics

India cannot become a true democracy that provides and protects individual liberties in the form of fundamental rights until it prioritises complete inclusivity, and, by extension, the dismissal of patriarchy as well as the eradication of any and every basis of distinction, especially one’s gender and sexuality. There is need for equality and equity as forms of performative justice, thereby this paper seeks to explore the concept of gender, sex and sexuality in the Indian context, and seeks to highlight the shortcomings of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 in particular. Further, it seeks to establish that although many local languages in India are gendered and may not have gender-neutral options to use in those specific languages, active usage of gender-neutral verbiage and vocabulary at least in the English language- which is taught as first, second or third language in most educational institutions across the country- would be a huge step. In addition to using they/them pronouns to encourage gender neutrality in English, normalizing using phrases such as ‘assigned male/female, etc. at birth’, ‘menstruating person’, ‘person with a uterus’, etc. can be pivotal in dismissing patriarchy and stereotypical gender roles, discrimination and such, forcing people to view each other as humans first.