Trans-gender-discrimination: The third gender refrained from celebrating their existence
Transgender community has been oppressed for far too long
Dunya News Report (Talha Ul Huda)
Haripur, KPK: Another bout of the hypocritical discriminators and rebutting progressives was witnessed all across the Social media as a transgender person named Taj Muhammad, who also goes by the name Paro, posted a video on a social media platform to inform the masses of an injustice; the transsexual was forced to cancel a birthday party that she had thrown to 500 guests. A hotel (Niaz Hotel) had been booked for this purpose but a day prior to this event the victim was approached by the Haripur police and told to call off the event.
The victim lodged a complaint to the Human Rights Directorate, stating that the Pakistani constitution has provided social rights to the community and requested that the Haripur police be questioned for their actions.
A notice was issued to the DPO (District Police Officer) Haripur, Khurram Shahzad, and the office was asked to submit a reply as to why this restriction was imposed. The DPO replied with the statement that they were under direct orders from the Chief Minister KPK for this action.
This correspondence was not backed up with any documental directives whatsoever from the Chief Minister’s offices. The HRD issued a summon notice to the DPO, to which he did not appear. A second notice was issued, at this development the DPO wrote to the HRD and informed them that the complainant had invited a large gathering of individuals; this was a threat to the regional security. According to the DPO, a gathering of this volume went against the NAP (National Action Plan) fundamentals. An insurgency case from 2007 was also mentioned which had taken the lives of 19 army commandos. Allegations of vulgarity were also reported by the complainant but they were not stated in the DPO’s correspondence.
As a society harboring a number of stereotypical taboos and inhumane norms, the Pakistani transgender society has always been the victim of oppression and skepticism. There is an innate fear of the transgender amongst the “normal” people, and this fear is inflicted since childhood. Pakistani parenthood does not deem it appropriate for their child to come in proximity with a transgender hence children develop feelings of disinclination towards this gender.
Until recently in 2012, Eunuchs in Pakistan had not been given the right to legal identity. In 2012, following a 2009 Supreme Court verdict, The NADRA (National Database and Registry Authority) took steps to ensure that there is a third gender category in the data-base for these citizens.
There are several notable counts of transvestite oppression from recent times, most of them concentrated in the province of KPK. In January 2015, a transvestite-rights activist named Adnan was shot by religious extremists in Peshawar. The critically injured activist was refused any treatment for three hours by the doctors at the lady reading hospital solely on the basis of him being a transgender. This is a distinguished example of the revolting social prejudice embedded in our norms.
According to a report, Pakistan has 500,000 transvestite citizens. Even after the recognition of their civil and human rights, members of the transgender community often complain that these directives are still not in practice and they are still subject to physical oppression and authoritative violence; their community lacks support from people of other genders which is why they cannot pursue the strengthening of their stature.
