{"id":7947,"date":"2017-08-04T10:53:55","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T05:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=7947"},"modified":"2017-08-04T10:53:55","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T05:08:55","slug":"pakistans-traditional-third-gender-isnt-happy-with-the-trans-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/pakistans-traditional-third-gender-isnt-happy-with-the-trans-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan&#8217;s traditional third gender isn&#8217;t happy with the trans movement"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"l-story__full\">\n<div class=\"panel-pane pane-entity-field pane-node-field-image\">\n<figure class=\"field-image\">\n<div id=\"file-180149\" class=\"file file-image file-image-jpeg\">\n<div class=\"content\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn1.pri.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/story_main\/public\/story\/images\/p059r9vd.jpg?itok=wkdJ73ks\" alt=\"\" width=\"937\" height=\"528\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"field-caption\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"image__credit\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<aside class=\"l-story__sidebar\">\n<aside class=\"promo-box--promo panel-pane pane-block pane-dfp-pri-ros-atf-300x600 jquery-once-6-processed\">\n<div id=\"dfp-ad-pri_ros_atf_300x600-wrapper\" class=\"dfp-tag-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"dfp-ad-pri_ros_atf_300x600\" class=\"dfp-tag-wrapper\" data-google-query-id=\"CI23yZLnvNUCFUMNaAodXUYGWg\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/1009951\/PRI_STORY_ATF_0__container__\">Kathmandu (Pahichan) August 4 &#8211; For centuries, South Asia has had its own\u00a0<em>Khawaja Sira<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0third gender\u00a0culture.\u00a0The community, identifying as neither male nor female, are believed\u00a0by many\u00a0to be &#8220;God\u2019s chosen people,&#8221;\u00a0with special powers to bless and curse anyone they choose.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"l-story__main\">\n<div class=\"panel-pane pane-page-content\">\n<article class=\"node-169814 node node-story view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"audio-player__wrapper\"><\/div>\n<p>The acceptance of Khawaja Sira people in Pakistan has been held up internationally as a symbol of tolerance, established long before Europe and America had even the slightest semblance of a transgender rights movement.<\/p>\n<p>But the acceptance of people defining their own gender in Pakistan is much more complicated.\u00a0The term transgender refers to someone whose gender identify differs from their birth sex.\u00a0This notion is yet to take root in Pakistan and the transgender rights movement is only beginning to assert itself formally.\u00a0Now, some third gender people in Pakistan say the modern transgender identity is threatening their ancient third gender culture.<\/p>\n<p>Kami Choudary has made international headlines and has been billed as &#8220;Pakistan\u2019s first transgender supermodel.&#8221;\u00a0This year\u00a0Choudary\u00a0delivered her first TEDx talk and she makes regular speaking appearances, telling her story and debating transgender rights in university auditoriums.\u00a0She asserts herself, not as a Khawaja Sira but as a transgender woman.\u00a0She acknowledges that her experience, as a rising transgender celebrity in Pakistan, is not the norm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy mother supports me.\u00a0My boyfriend supports me and my mentors and friends support me,\u201d\u00a0says Kami, who\u00a0wants transgender people in Pakistan\u00a0to be more vocal.\u00a0\u201cWe have to do something.\u00a0I am very public so people are always talking about Kami.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Choudary\u00a0benefits from the privilege of familial support and being able to identify as she chooses. She is educated, English speaking and from a fairly affluent family.\u00a0In contrast, many Khawaja Siras are disowned by their biological families.\u00a0The community is discriminated against heavily, with most Khawaja Siras making a living from performance, sex work or begging.\u00a0They are\u00a0simultaneously\u00a0celebrated as &#8220;gifted&#8221;\u00a0by God and ridiculed for not conforming to the male\/female gender roles that society prescribes.<\/p>\n<p>Bindiya Rana is the grand matriarch of the third gender community in Karachi. She doesn\u2019t prescribe to the transgender identity.\u00a0She is a Khawaja Sira, so revered that she is a\u00a0<em>guru<\/em>\u00a0(teacher) to more than 50\u00a0<em>chelahs<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0apprentices.<\/p>\n<p>This relationship has a parental element and is a cornerstone of Khawaja Sira culture.\u00a0Each\u00a0chelah\u00a0pledges allegiance to their guru, as they did to their guru before them.\u00a0These family trees provide acceptance, social support and financial backing.\u00a0Most chelahs give a percentage of their income to their gurus.\u00a0It\u2019s a lifetime commitment that allows the establishment of families that often replaces biological lineage.<\/p>\n<p>But those who identify as transgender, like\u00a0Choudary, don\u2019t prescribe to the guru-chelah system.\u00a0As a result,\u00a0Rana\u00a0and her chelahs view the transgender identity as alien and even immoral.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a guru, we don\u2019t recognize you.\u00a0These people who say they are transgender; that concept is just wrong,&#8221; says\u00a0Rana. &#8220;They can never be women.\u00a0They cannot give birth.\u00a0Even if they change their bodies they can\u2019t change who they are.\u00a0We are not women.\u00a0We are what Allah has made.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such sentiment detracts from the idea that Pakistan has a liberal take on transgender rights.\u00a0It\u2019s more accurate to assert that Pakistan has an established acceptance of third gender culture.\u00a0These are two different things.<\/p>\n<p>The clash between transgender women and third gender Khawaja Siras can be characterized by differences in education, language and age.\u00a0Increasingly, young Pakistanis who don\u2019t identify with the gender assigned to them at birth\u00a0assert themselves as transgender and not\u00a0Khawaja Sira.<\/p>\n<p>Qasim Iqbal coordinates research into gender and sexuality for the Naz Project in Pakistan.\u00a0In a survey conducted in 2011, participants where asked if they identified as male or female. Eighty-seven\u00a0percent\u00a0of those questioned said they identified as neither and preferred instead the term\u00a0third gender.\u00a0But Iqbal\u00a0suggests this is now changing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the newer generation say they are transgender they are referring to the\u00a0transgender<em>\u00a0<\/em>that the West acknowledges. A lot of the modern transgender women are wearing Daisy Duke shorts and tube tops.\u00a0They are breaking away from the tradition.\u00a0They are becoming more hip and modern,&#8221; says\u00a0Iqbal.<\/p>\n<p>Even if Khawaja Siras and transgender women identify differently and prescribe to different cultures, the longstanding acceptance of the Khawaja Sira culture in mainstream Pakistan offers transgender women an umbrella of protection.\u00a0The idea of boys growing up to identify as Khawaja Sira rather than the gender assigned to them at birth, is nothing new in Pakistan.\u00a0It is accepted \u2014\u00a0in varying degrees \u2014 in every Pakistani village, town and city.<\/p>\n<p>But what if you identify not as a Khawaja Sira, or even as a transgender woman, but as a transgender man? In Pakistan\u2019s fiercely patriarchal society, the idea of a person whose birth sex is assigned as female growing up to identify as male is almost unheard of.<\/p>\n<p>In Lahore, Mani and girlfriend Razia have worked hard to establish a home together.\u00a0Mani is a transgender man and is very clearly in love.\u00a0While\u00a0looking at Razia, he says,\u00a0\u201cShe is a perfect girl.\u00a0She is a marriage material woman so I can\u2019t see my life without her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The couple eloped from their native Karachi to live and love as they have chosen.\u00a0But there has been a price to pay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy dad said,\u00a0\u2018If you go to Lahore, I will not talk to you again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mani now has no relationship with his father although he does speak to his mother and siblings regularly.\u00a0In a society where relationships are so often public property, leaving home to live with a lover and identifying as a transgender man are both revolutionary acts.<\/p>\n<p>Mani recently had a double mastectomy and plans on ovary removal in the coming year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I am the first transgender man in Pakistan to have this breast removal surgery.\u00a0I am on hormones.\u00a0The ovary removal is expensive and we don\u2019t have facilities in Pakistan, so it will take some time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Mani has contacted other transgender men in Pakistan and he believes the community is slowly, becoming more visible.<\/p>\n<p>In its 70th year of independence, the discussion of gender in Pakistan is more complicated than it\u2019s ever been.\u00a0In some ways, Pakistan is years ahead of Europe, acknowledging and sometimes celebrating a third gender as part of its established history and future.\u00a0But the ability to choose gender identity outside of the established third gender system remains elusive and is almost exclusively the preserve of an affluent, educated\u00a0minority.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mobeen Azhar&#8217;s BBC radio documentary\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p05951qt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inside Transgender Pakistan<\/a>\u00a0is available to download and stream.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Copy :\u00a0https:\/\/www.pri.org<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kathmandu (Pahichan) August 4 &#8211; For centuries, South Asia has had its own\u00a0Khawaja Sira\u00a0or\u00a0third gender\u00a0culture.\u00a0The community, identifying as neither male nor female, are believed\u00a0by many\u00a0to be &#8220;God\u2019s chosen people,&#8221;\u00a0with special powers to bless and curse anyone they choose.<\/p>\n<p>The acceptance of Khawaja Sira people in Pakistan has been held up internationally as a symbol of tolerance, established long before Europe and America had even the slightest semblance of a transgender rights movement.<br \/>\nBut the acceptance of people defining their own gender in Pakistan is much more complicated.\u00a0The term transgender refers to someone &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":7948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,490,11],"tags":[745,458],"class_list":["post-7947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-slider","category-world","tag-pakistan","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7949,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7947\/revisions\/7949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}