What happens when the edges are marginalized? MX. Yashika, caste and the crisis within the India’s trans movement
MX. Yashika’s story does not start with triumph, but with a tremor. One that cuts through the ragged jacket of solidarity in the India’s trans -right movement. As a Dalit -Trans -Trehrter from Saharanpur, it recently became the goal of the public, castic presumption of none other than a high -ranking member of the Uttar Pradesh Transgender Welfare Board, according to January 2025 report through the probe.
The Hindu ReportDevika Devendra S. Manglamukhi claimed that Yashika had received her caste and transgender identity certificates fraudulent. These are claims that Yashika vehemently denied and legally fought. The communication of Yashika (with Pro-Bono aid by Chambers for Justice, a law firm based in new Delhi) not only requires a retreat, but a betrayal that feels as institutionally as it is personally.
“The cabbage of the caste against Dalit Trans- and Queer people have never been taken into account,” she says.
The game here is more than a person’s dignity. It is the deletion of Dalit -Trans -votes from movements that claim to speak for all trans people. It is the reproduction of the predominance of the caste within LGBTQIA+ rooms that are supposedly inclusive. And it is heartache to be tensioned (not only by dominant, guided queer institutions), but also by platforms that are dedicated to the Dalit rights.
As Yashika puts it, “[Most people] Ignore Dalit Trans problems. “
What does the message show?
On July 6, 2025, Devika Posted on Instagramclaims that Mx. Yashika had fake her planned caste and transgender -id certificates.
These accusations were in news platforms such as how Tak Tak And tnf today (the latter has now been deleted, but was expelled in the legal notification admitted by Yashika) and requested the NHRC intervention, which fully invented the legal announcement.
The UP TAK report incorrectly explained: “Yashika (…) violated the rules and created two certificates for himself. One of them is a planned chest service, and the other is a transgender identity card issued by the district judge.”
The article also insisted that after a decision in 2014, transpersonen should only be recognized according to the OBC category, which means that box-based reservations are illegal. Such claims not only incorrectly represent the judgment of the NALSA, but also overlook the lived realities of the caste and the gender -specific oppression.
SDM Anma Verma, quoted in the same report, made it clear that his office had not received any formal complaint. Nevertheless, Devika supposedly has WhatsApp groups such as “National Network of Transgender” and “Webine Transgender” to weave the spread of defaming content, including the demands of others, Yashika. The announcement also claims Devika, “used and circulated photos of [Yashika] Without their consent, which is a rough invasion of their privacy. “
Over and above coordinated They repeatedly refer to the screenshots from these groups to Yashika’s casticism, her father’s name, and asks them to equip them.
The statutory announcement, which was issued, was commissioned by Advocate Sourabh Rai by Chambers for Justice, who accused Devika due to criminal defamation in the context of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the violation of provisions as part of the law on the SC/ST (contraception of atromatic activities) and the IT law.
Devika has previously publicly targeted another Dalit transfer activist. On April 2025 report In the news minute, she said that she also raised similar accusations against the activist Grace Banu, another violent supporter of Horizontal reservationAt the Talkera police station. She claimed Grace robbed her and threatened her on December 22, 2024.
The parallels are impossible to ignore.
Transgender activists who work for horizontal reservation are among the other complainants who have listed Devikai in their formal complaint. Ritwick, an activist based in Lucknow and Delhi, and Jane Kaushik, an activist based in Delhi, belong to them.
A cast ice pattern in queer rooms
Yashika is not new to exclusion. She tells Fii that during the persecution of an MA in human rights at Panjab University in Chandigarh, she was only refused to access hostel because of her gender identity. This was Punjab & Haryana High Court until 2022 command The administration forced itself to fulfill.
“My family never helps me. I have experienced the exclusion of the gender from Dalit rooms and the caste suppression between trans- or CIS people in the upper caste,” she explains. The institutions to which she turned to protection replicate the same hierarchies that she tried to escape.
The current attack, she claims, is based on a long -term disagreement towards the reservation directive. While Yashika and several Dalit Trans activists work for horizontal reservations (recognition of the caste and gender identity as an overlapping systems of oppression), Devika has publicly argued that all trans -persons should not be classified by crossing in the WhatsApp group called National Network.
Yashika believes that this wipes off the unique suppression of Dalit Trans -individuals and the community flies into a monolith. The structural vulnerability deepens these wounds. “I never had support in the family. I deliberately and systematically excluded,” says Yashika.
Even in queer rooms, the caste determines who is platform and who is monitored. In Uttar Pradesh, she adds: “Dalit transpersonen live in fear, which is why they are not open to Uttar Pradesh” because they are afraid of the state and the dominant queer groups. “I feel very insecure due to castism and certification.”
Where are our media?
The silence around Yashika’s case is deafening. Despite the clear legal records and the digital evidence of defamation, several well-known platforms (including those who focus on Dalit rights) have refused to report their history. “Some promised that they would do it and gave me a ghost,” she says.
The silence of the media only shows their underlying complaints with intersectionality.
Dalit transpersonen are often deleted both from the Dalit movement (which tend to be CIS heteronormative) and from the strange movement (dominated by voices of the upper caste). “They ignored our visibility and alienated us,” says Yashika. “There is no Dalit exemption without the appropriation and inclusion of Dalit transpersonen in the Dalit movement.”
Dalit Queer India, a collective Yashika, confirmed her experience in conversation. “They told me that they were confronted with the same,” she recalls. “They said the only way to create our own media rooms. The world does not want us to exist, so we have to write our own stories.”
In a country where Savarna even dominate in activist rooms, such calls for building autonomous platforms are revolutionary and necessary.
In the middle of this storm, Yashika managed to achieve something monumental. In June 2025, she qualified for the UGC network and earned the authorization as an assistant professor. “It means a lot,” she says and her voice breaks. “I would like to thank Babasaheb Ambedar and Buddha. I remember that Ambedar once said: those who don’t know any history do not make history.”
This is not just a personal milestone, but a political statement. It claims to participate in Dalit -Trans -Personal to public life, science and governance. In contrast to the humiliating narrative of “Good Trans -person”, it is directly opposed to Devika and its allies.
MX Yashika is also part of a broader national demand: the implementation of the horizontal reservations for transpersons in public education and employment.
“The Dalit Trans Community in all of India called for the implementation of the horizontal reservation for transgender people in educational institutions and public employment, especially in Uttar Pradesh,” she says. “I would like to tell the Union government that it should consider the horizontal recognition of transpersonen together with her cheeseity in the upcoming casting census.”
When the trans movement violates its own
The pain in MX. Yashika’s voice is not just from this smear campaign. It is cheated by movements that she worked tirelessly to climb.
This is not the first time that Devika has targeted Dalit transfer activists, and it will probably not be the last one unless the accountability is required. The fact that a high-ranking member of the welfare board can defame an endangered trans dalite woman without proper procedure should alert all of us.
Yashika’s story is not just hers.
It is about what happens when the edges are marginalized again by the movements they are supposed to protect. If the gatekeeping replaces solidarity when institutional power is not for advocacy, but for personal vendas, the movement fails.
Queer and dalit rooms have to do better. You do not have to commit to intersectionality as a keyword, but as a practice. And you have to create space for our Yashikas all over the world … not only in triumphal times, but especially in moments of court proceedings.
Well (she/she) comes from Kalkutta and loves to explore all things, culture, gender, and write about all things. With a background in journalism and English literature, they were finally able to lead from warm conversations to a large part of their lives outside of boxes.
