Position of LGBTQ+ community in Indian Army

After the NALSA judgment[1] of 2014, attempts were made to re-integrate the marginalized trans community in India. Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India[2] in 2018 decriminalized Section 377 of IPC which penalized “unnatural sex”, thereby legally allowing LGBTQIA+ community’s adults to engage in consensual coitus. However in June 2019 when the then Chief of Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat was asked about the impact of the judgement in the Indian Army, he said: “The Army is conservative. We are a family. We are not westernized. As for the lgbt issues, they are simply not acceptable in the army”. Though General Rawat did not entirely dismiss the possibility of the LGBT community joining the Indian Army in the near future.