Transgender community needs more social, legal space

PESHAWAR: Blue Veins, a Peshawar-based non-governmental organization, arranged here a multi-stakeholders consultation in bid to help improve lives of the transgender and intersex community in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Supported by the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives, the event brought together various primary and secondary stakeholders to disscuss the social and legal issues of transgender community and to get their reponses which are so required from them to address these issues.

The participnats included religious leaders, civil society represesntatives, transgender activists, media representatives, lawyers, government officials, police, political parties representatives  and academia.

Qamar Naseem, programme coordinator, Blue Veins, said the event was aimed at bringing key stakeholders and transgender activists together so that they could be provided the oppurtunity to raise their issues by themselves with the participants.

He said the consultation not only aimed at bridging the gap between government officials, civil society representatives and transgender community but also highlighting the issues concerning transgender community of KP and fining their solutions.

Qamar Naseem said the Blue Veins wanted to ensure equal protection of rights safeguarded and guaranteed under the Constitution to all citizens regardless of their gender identity. “We need to bring transgender community in a leading position so that they can raise voice for rights and priviledges they are deprived of,” he said.

Farzana Jan, president of TransAction Alliance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and transgender rights activists, said  the transgender community belongs to various ethnicites.

“Although our visibility has been increaisng for the last some years, yet we face a lack of acceptance and tolerance in our society. We still face severe discriminations,stigma and systemic unequality because of our gender identity,” she lamented .

Farzana Jan said the community needed comprehensive non-discriminative laws  for all public accomodations. “Legislation specifically designed to protect our rights and freedoms is a dire need so that our safe access to public accomodations can be ensured without any discrimination on the basis of gender,” she added.

Maulana Tayyab Quraishi said every human being was entitled to equal treatment regardless of sex and gender.

Dr Saleem, Project Director of the Halth Department, said transgenders faced a host of serious problems when it comes to their health and physical well-being. He said in many instances they were not treated according to their requirments due to social stigmas and taboos.

“We need to ensure that better and more sufficent health facilities are developed for the transgender community of KP so that they do not have compromise on their health,” he added.