Wow, this is an interesting development:
Late on Wednesday, the Supreme Court in Pakistan ordered that the government officially recognize a separate gender for Pakistan’s hijra community, which includes transgendered people, transvestites, and eunuchs. The court told the federal government to begin allowing people to identify as hijras when registering for a national identity card.
Such cards are necessary for everything from voting to more informal situations; patrons must present the card at cybercafes before surfing the Internet, for example. Not having an identity card, or having one with incorrect information, leaves a person vulnerable and easily excluded from society.
(…)
In addition to the order for government recognition, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry also issued a warning that the hijras’ rights of inheritance, which are often informally ignored, would be enforced, and that police harassment would not be permitted, a sign, perhaps, of rulings to come.
The article also points out that India has recently made similar provisions.
It’s unclear whether this is a giant leap forward for the recognition of Pakistanis who don’t fit neatly into the binary gender construct, especially since, as Charli Carpenter points out, women still face such institutional discrimation in Pakistan. My instinct is that it’s a definite step, since in so many societies (including, ahem, American society), transgender people still have to fight tooth and nail to be recognized as a legitimate minority worthy of protection.
Of course, the situation can be turned around and viewed quite differently. Ever reliable for spot-on snark, curv3ball at The Poor Man Institute assesses the situation as such: “Pakistan has suffered a costly setback in the My-Taliban-Is-More-Retrograde-Than-Your-Taliban Olympics.”
Hehindeedy!
A poor, third-world country with multiple and massive social problems moves towards officially recognizing transgendered people and their situations, apparently YEARS before the U.S. does.
Does something appear different than one may be expecting, here? Or, maybe “out of character” more accurately describes what I am reading.
As a trans person, this is fantastic news! This already happened in India last year, but only in one state.
Trans rights aren’t always on the same track as gay rights. For one, we started thousands of years earlier. In Indo-Pakistan, hijras are included in the 1800 year old Kamasutra. In many cultures trans people have had the equal rights and freedom from any social stigma that LGBT people dream of. So it’s not a movement that progresses with time like the rest of the LGB movement. It just so happens that in the West, all LGBT people where in such a mess we’ve had no where to go but up. Not so in the rest of the world.
This sounds like the rejection of the gender binary system that the British Empire imported during colonization. Although hijras have long been recognized to exist, they are generally disrespected and almost always unemployed. Apparently this law will aid them in receiving inheritance. My hope is that as a recognized, legal gender, they can argue for employment non-discrimination.
[...] Evan Hurst from Truth Wins Out reports on Pakistan’s recognition of Transgender people. Read more [...]