Pakistan's Hijra Transgender Minority Finds Its Voice

From the Guardian UK

Declan Walsh in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010

Harassed, intimidated, abused: but now Pakistan's hijra transgender minority finds its voice
New civil rights for Pakistan's long-oppressed 'wedding dancers' offer hope of a better life

Down a grimy alleyway in Rawalpindi, in the heart of Pakistan's military establishment, a striking figure tweaked her makeup and squirted a dash of perfume under her arms.

Life as a hijra, as Pakistan's transgender minority is known, can be tough, said 21-year-old Alisha, recounting tales of extortion, sexual violence and predatory policemen. But of late things have started to improve.

The government has offered help, the hijras' plight has come into the public eye, and even the police are showing a little respect.

"They call us the chief justice's darlings," she said.

An unlikely revolution is stirring among Pakistan's transgender community. Over the past six months the supreme court has issued a series of ground-breaking judgments in favour of hijras, who have long lived under a cloud of disapprobation and discrimination.

Spurred by the forceful chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was restored after countrywide protests last year, normally moribund authorities have been ordered to ensure hijras enjoy the same rights as other Pakistanis, in matters of inheritance, employment and election registration.

Police have been warned to cease harassment and intimidation. Pakistan's national database and registration authority, which issues ID cards, has been told to research a third option under the "sex" column.

"Times are changing," said Almas Bobby, leader of one of the largest group of hijras in Rawalpindi. "Our community feels good for the first time in 60 years."

The changes have triggered a heady sense of possibility.

In October hijras in the southern city of Sukkur fielded the country's first hijras cricket team. After winning their inaugural match, the captain thanked the chief justice.

The exuberance is spreading. Earlier this month about 100 hijras from across Punjab crammed into a tented rooftop area for a raucous dance party.

Showers of rose petals filled the air as hijras of all ages, draped in sequined dresses and bedecked in costume jewellery, danced into the small hours – whirling and swinging their hips in the manner of Bollywood movie stars.

The hijras' roots run deep in Asia: many were respected courtesans in the courts of the Moghul emperors who ruled south Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries. One even commanded troops into battle.

But behind the merriment, hijra life can be lonely and dangerous in a conservative society such as Pakistan.

Most hijras describe themselves as "professional wedding dancers" (women performers are forbidden under Pakistani law) but campaigners say their main sources of income hail from begging and prostitution.

Alisha, who worked as a makeup artist to pay for silicon implants, sported a 36B bra under a red sequinned dress. "I've always felt like a girl in my soul," she said. But her voice also rang with sadness: her middle-class Islamabad family cast her out. She pointed to Azeem, a middle-aged hijra who once worked as head of housekeeping in a five-star hotel.

"Now she is my mother and father," Alisha said.

Although often referred to as "eunuchs", many of Pakistan's hijras have not undergone gender reassignment surgery, according to campaigners. The medical and psychological services available in other Asian countries, such as Thailand, are either absent or operate in the shadows. A plastic surgeon in Rawalpindi, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he would only operate on hijras after hours.

"It would not raise the prestige of the clinic if they were seen," he said.

The surgeon said he also treated a minority of women seeking gender ­reassignment surgery.

"They come in with bandages on their breasts, which causes ulcers and lesions, threatening to commit suicide if we don't operate," he said.

Back at the party in Rawalpindi a group of men wearing regular shalwar kameez, loose trousers and tunic, watched from the back of the room. They were the "sponsors" – often married men who keep hijras as mistresses.

The men watched silently, filming with their mobile phones, but sometimes stepped forward to cast bundles of 10 rupee notes over their favourite dancers – and in so doing, sent banknote images of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founding father, fluttering to the ground.

An unlikely revolutionary

The man leading the hijras' modern crusade is an unlikely warrior: a lawyer who specialises in Islamic law. Islamabad barrister Muhammad Aslam Khaki instigated the supreme court cases last year after reading about a brutal incident in Taxila, near the capital, where police allegedly robbed and raped a group of eight hijra wedding dancers.

"People don't consider them as human beings. They don't like to eat with them, drink with them or shake their hands," he said. "But they are full citizens of Pakistan like everyone else."

It is not the first time the softly-spoken lawyer has challenged Pakistan's status quo. Last year Khaki persuaded a federal Islamic court to overturn the punishment for drinking alcohol – 40 lashes of the whip – on the basis that it was not in accordance with the Qur'an. Later, he won a declaration that prisoners should be allowed conjugal rights with their wives during visiting hours – also, he says, a little-known provision of Islam.

"Ours is the most misunderstood religion," he said.

But his advocacy for hijras is a bridge too far for some. He has received death threats from Shabab e-Milli, an offshoot of the youth wing of Pakistan's main religious party, Jamaat e-Islami. "They say I am protecting the gay culture. But I am protecting them from the police culture of torture and sex abuse."