The ‘X’ people

In a historic move, Farzana Jan, the president of the She-Male Association of Pakistan, became the first citizen of the country to carry a passport that allows its bearer to select a gender other than male or female.

The acknowledgement of members of the transgender community follows years of activism that forced the country’s legal system to recognise gender on the basis of self-identification. Jan and many others have fought to get this recognition.

But after the court, the battles then were fought with the bureaucracy. We are told that it took more than six months for Jan to get the passport processed and include a separate column for people who do not want to identify as a male or female and define themselves as ‘X’. The passport’s other particulars are the same as those of ordinary passports.

Like passports, transgender people are issued computerised national identity cards (CNICs) having a separate gender column, following the decision of the Supreme Court back in 2011. Just like with passports, they are still facing problems in getting ordinary CNICs that consist male and female gender column. Since the majority of transgender people are abandoned by their families, the necessary particulars required to get CNICs remain empty. This affects their prospects for employment, as well as identification for secondary documents like passports.

These are just some of many battles that need to be fought on behalf of transgender people. In Pakistan this community has been reduced to the subject of jokes and ridicule. One of the only professions they can make a living from is usually the oldest profession in the world. They are not given opportunities in any other field.

One recalls that it was an enterprising officer in one of the Cantonment Boards in Karachi who some years back hired some members of the community to identify and shame tax-evaders into paying their taxes. It was a successful drive but the people who were earlier tasked to do this work, and who could not do it, protested and sabotaged the initiative.

They are denied education and health. Most are turned out of hospitals as other patients are not comfortable having them around. At the same time, owing to the fact that many transgender people are involved in prostitution, access to health clinics and awareness of safe practices should be a priority. It is not.

More recently, there has been a rise in violence against transgender people, especially in the K-P province. But their attackers remain at large, yet to be arrested let alone punished for their crimes.

Transgender female Alisha who was shot eight times succumbed to her wounds at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) last year. The 25-year-old’s was the fifth reported case of violence against transgender people in K-P in 2016. Her friend, Qamar Naseem, told the media that when taking Alisha to the LRH, one of the oldest health facilities in the province, the doctors kept asking the injured Alisha if she danced only and how much she charged, whereas the blood laboratory assistant asked them if their blood was HIV positive or not. Alisha’s assailants have still not been arrested.

Last year, at least five people were arrested in Sialkot after a video of a man thrashing a transgender person went viral on social media. It is not the first time that the transgender community has been harassed, gang-raped or attacked. However, this video of a transgender person being beaten up by a man was so disturbing that it shook the authorities into action.

Local media identified the perpetrator as Jajja Butt, who beat up the transgender person in Sialkot over some money dispute. Either way, no action was taken against the aggressor and he was let off after paying the local police.

The fact remains that the state of Pakistan has been unable to give members of the transgender community a proper place in society. One of the biggest problems is the mindset that many Pakistanis have with regard to members of the community. They are seen as deviants: to be shunned or ridiculed. Others, especially women, ascribe magical powers to them and insist they be doled out alms so that they do not curse any family or person. The problem in all this is that transgender people are not seen as humans — and as such there is no talk of giving them rights like other Pakistanis.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2017.

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