Transgender persons to mount legal challenge

PBS was informed that the govt had not included transgender as a separate gender in the census form

ISLAMABAD: Members of the transgender community will file a petition in the Supreme Court challenging a government move to ignore them as a separate gender in the census form in clear violation of the apex court’s 2009 judgment.

On Saturday, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) was informed that the government had not included transgender as a separate gender in the census form since 42.5 million of these had already been printed. However, a separate code will be assigned to transgenders in the column titled ‘sex’.

Executive director of the Forum for Dignity Initiatives (FDI) Uzma Yaqoob told The Express Tribune that PBS had recently shared a draft of the census form which contained a separate column for transgender persons, but for unknown reasons it was dropped from the printed form.

That is why transgender people were left with no option except to move the top court, she said. The plea will request the top court to ask the authorities concerned to introduce a third option –including male transgender, female transgender and intersexual – in the third column.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2016.