Community abandons first old-age home for transgender

Guru Aashi Butt intends to turn the vacant facility into a women’s vocation and community centre

LAHORE:

The first old age home built for Lahore’s transgender community has reportedly closed down, after remaining vacant for quite some time during the pandemic-related lockdowns.

Privately funded by local transgender activist Guru Aashi Butt’s life savings, the care centre was established to fill the gap in access to elderly welfare services for the gender minority and was initially housing over 60 transgender individuals in their dotage. However, all residents of the facility are said to have emptied the communal living space during the worst of Covid-19, eventually rendering the service redundant.

According to Guru Aashi Butt, she had started the old age home to provide warmth and shelter to hundreds of khawaja siras who’d spent their early years working as performers or begging on the streets, but could no longer maintain a living due to senescence. “There are no government or non-government old age homes for the transgender people, and most of us do not even have access to care from the family system. So this was meant to be a safe haven for all elderly khawaja siras, where they could live comfortably in their declining years and give each other warmth and company,” said Butt, explaining her vision for the 20 marla facility she’d opened in Rachna Town.

Talking about the old age home’s residentiary, she said that most of them left unannounced, some succumbed to senescence, while a few a were too ill to leave she brought them to her own residence in the inner city. “They live with me now,” added Butt.

The experience of setting up the old age home, says Guru Aashi Butt, has reminded her of how strange her own community is. “I dedicated my life’s savings to set up a safe place for the most disadvantaged of khawaja siras but they didn’t even stick around and probably returned to the streets,” she said, adding she now intends to turn the abandoned old age home into a women’s vocation and community centre.

Unlike Butt’s facility for the transgender, most old-age homes in the city operate primarily on donations from various outlets. “Sometimes there are retired government officers who live here and pay a part of their living through their pensions. There are also people who cannot keep their elderly with them and pay a monthly care fee for their living, but since there are only a limited number of old age homes, we can only admit people over the age of sixty and prioritise those who have no one else to go to,” informed Heaven Old Age Home’s Head Dr Jameel.

Per statistics, the city of Lahore is home to a dozen old age homes run by the Department of Social Welfare and various NGOs, with a total residentiary of 800 elderly citizens. However, none of those facilities offer any provisions for housing transgender persons, who already have limited avenues for receiving care and support. This made Guru Aashi Butt’s care centre a one-of-a-kind facility that was very much needed in the Mughal city, but there is no telling why the very community it intended to cater to abandoned it on tenterhooks. “I will never understand how my own community thinks,” lamented the Guru, verbalising her new plans for the place.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2022.