Speaker Details: WorldPride Conference

About the spreaker
Sahil Choudhary (He/She) is an APCOM Community HERO Award 2025 recipient, human rights advocate, and Program Director of India’s first LGBTQIA+ Centre at The Naz Foundation (India) Trust in New Delhi. Working at the intersections of LGBTQIA+ rights, public health, gender justice, and sex workers’ rights, Sahil leads community-rooted initiatives providing mental health support, legal aid, sexual health services, and crisis response to over 30,000 people annually across Delhi and other parts of India. With over five years of experience in grassroots organizing and policy advocacy, Sahil has worked extensively with trans communities, queer youth, people living with HIV, and street-based sex workers to strengthen access to care, legal protections, and community-led support systems. In 2023, Sahil was selected to serve on a committee constituted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment following Supriyo v. Union of India, where he contributed to policy recommendations on the rights of same-sex couples. Several of these recommendations informed subsequent policy shifts, including access to joint bank accounts and recognition within family registration systems such as ration cards. More recently, Sahil was a key figure in mobilising resistance to the regressive Transgender Persons Bill, now enacted as the Trans Act. He led the convening of national consultations in Delhi that brought together leading trans activists, lawyers, and community leaders from across India to forge a unified strategy at a critical moment for the movement. These effort directly shaped the legal responses that underpin ongoing constitutional challenges to the Act. In parallel, he spearheaded large-scale community mobilisation and awareness efforts to ensure trans communities across the country were informed, organised, and able to respond to the law’s implications. A trained lawyer and ILGA Asia Fellow, Sahil has trained sitting judges, police personnel, Air Force officers, and mental health professionals on LGBTQIA+ inclusion and human rights. He has spoken at institutions including Harvard Business School, the University of Cambridge, and the National Human Rights Commission of India.