Transgender Pakistanis see gains, but bias persists

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan’s parliament is poised to pass the nation’s first law recognizing transgender people as equal citizens and laying out penalties for discrimination and violence against them, a surprising victory for activists in a country with conservative social views.

The Transgender Persons Protection of Rights bill, which community members and activists say has the support of all the major political parties, is expected to pass easily in parliament in the coming weeks.

The draft law gives intersex people, eunuchs, transgender men and women and anyone whose gender identity or expression “differs from the social norms and cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at the time of their birth” the right to identify as a transgender person and enjoy the same rights as other men and women in Pakistan.

Naeema Kishwar Khan, a member of parliament who sponsored the bill, said, “We are pushing for this bill because it is the right of these people, not only a right as human beings but as citizens of this country.”

The action in parliament follows a series of victories for the country’s transgender population.

Last year, a group of Pakistani clerics issued a religious edict saying transgender people with “visible signs” of male or female attributes could marry someone of the opposite sex. In 2012, the Supreme Court declared equal rights for transgender citizens, including the right to inherit property and equal opportunity in education and employment, and the year before, they were given the right to vote.

This year, Pakistan counted transgender people in its national census for the first time. Then in June, the government issued its first passports with a transgender category.

But to many transgender Pakistanis, the advances fall short of what is really needed: changing the attitudes of a mainstream society that shuns and abuses them, often forcing them into begging or prostitution to earn a living.