From hijras to transgender persons

It has taken them more than two thousand years to emerge from the darkest corners of society to stake a claim to their individual identities and to a respectable existence. They were hijras from time immemorial, but today they are transgender, khwaja saras, shemales, LGBT – anything but hijras. And that is also costing them dearly. They claim that they deserve respect, not lust or ridicule from the honourable, mainstream members of society.

Hardly a week goes by without a news report of a serious incident of violence targeting a transgender person in some part of the country. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, their lives have been ravaged by seemingly unrelated incidents of murder. In one case, a transgender victim of violence died at a hospital in Peshawar without getting proper medical treatment because doctors could not decide whether she should be treated at a ward for men or women.

Recently, a video clip went viral containing an incident of brutal violence on a transgender person in Sialkot. Perhaps, the unkindest cut of all came from the holy land last week, as Saudi Arabia restricted transgender persons from performing Umrah.

Life for transgender persons is not easy anywhere in the world. They throw a basic challenge to our human brain, which is basically a category-making machine – if we go by structural linguistics. Anything that does not fit into neat categories is seen as a potential threat, and society tries to eliminate it or formulates mechanisms to control it.

Obsessed with categories and hierarchies, South Asian societies created a caste-like structure for transgender persons thousands of years ago and outcaste them into one of the worst social categories ever invented – the hijras, a social category unique to the region. Since hijras were neither men nor women, they were like saints. However, by transgressing established boundaries of gender and by being infertile, they posed a serious threat to society. By being woman-like, they were also objects of male lust in a strictly segregated society.

These three attitudes define the lives of hijras in South Asian societies. They are responsible for blessing newborn babies; they are feared for their curses; and they earn their livelihood through begging, dancing and providing sexual services as substitutes for women.

A transgender baby is born with a biological life but is not endowed with a social existence. Most parents give away their hermaphrodite children to hijras as soon as they are born and the rest of society is told of a stillbirth or an infant mortality. These children are raised in hijra communes with their own fictitious relationships to fill the emotional and functional vacuum of the family. There is a saying that no one has ever seen the funeral of a transgender. This is because sociologically a funeral marks the end of the social life of a member of a community. Hijras have no social life to begin with, so the community has no need to mourn its end.

Being outcastes also means liberation from social norms and, to some extent, state laws, both of which are rarely applied on hijras. For the purpose of social control, society uses the weapon of ridicule instead. The hijra communes also attract new adolescent and adult entrants who seek liberation from social constraints and find solace in the company of those who can understand their pain and share their feelings. There cannot be a more forceful rejection of mainstream society. No wonder, Bulleh Shah, the great Sufi poet, sang and danced with hijras on some occasions to make this point.

Trangender persons in Pakistan want to break the confines of the hijra category and join mainstream society. South Asian societies have seen class, caste and religious struggle but never a struggle by this kind of minority. True, there are hundreds of gender activists in the country but even they have kept a safe distance from hijras to avoid stigmatising their struggle. They have behaved like Gandhi in Africa, struggling for the rights of South Asians without recognising the humanity of black Africans.

Transgender persons have found unlikely champions for their rights in Pakistan and their struggle, less than a decade old, has made enormous strides. Their supporters include religious scholars who have issued fatwas supporting their rights, civil society activists, politicians, lawyers and judges.

In fact, the whole struggle may not have taken shape had it not been for Dr Muhammad Aslam Khaki – a lawyer specialising in Islamic law – who approached the Supreme Court in 2009 after an appalling incident in Taxila, where local police     reportedly      attacked and raped a group of transgender dancers.

Former CJ Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry emerged as a champion of the transgender minority after this case reached his court. The Supreme Court granted the transgender community their own  gender category       in the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra). This means that a transgender person can now, per their own will, have male transgender, female transgender or intersex written on their national identification cards. The court also ordered the government to register their votes, and suggested different kinds of affirmative action.

Abandoned by their biological families, transgender persons still face immense problems in getting CNICs as Nadra requires the family tree to issue an identity card. According to a report, 90 percent transgender persons in KP are still without a CNIC. Thousands of transgender persons, though, have been able to obtain national identity cards as a ‘third gender’ and their votes have also been registered.

Since 2009, both government and private institutions have opened their doors to transgender persons for employment. However, transgender persons would properly benefit from this change in policy if affirmative action is taken by educational institutions by providing them admissions and scholarships.

The travel restriction by Saudi Arabia is being debated at the Senate, where the matter has been handed to a special committee. Members of religious parties have been most vocal in opposing this ban. Speaking on a point of order, JUI-F Senator Hafiz Hamdullah said: “Islam gives the same rights to transgender persons as men and women…In our society, they are treated as ‘outcasts’ which should not be tolerated…being a transgender person is not a crime.”

Seven transgender candidates contested the 2013 general elections, though none of them could win a seat. And in the by-election being held for a provincial seat in Jhang, one of the 32 candidates is Arif alias Madam Boota, a transgender person.

Transgender persons have started on a long journey to reclaim their human rights; and they are by no means alone. South Asia can claim to have humanised itself only after it admits to its darker side, reverses thousands of years of cruelty meted out to social groups like transgender persons and integrates them into communities as normal citizens who enjoy equal rights and bear equal responsibilities.

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan