Transgenders.....Looking for Equal Rights By Aziz Sanghur

Transgenders: Looking for Equal Rights is a long documentary, directed, produced and written by Aziz Sanghur. Mr. Sanghur is documentary film-maker. The documentary shows that there are over 16,000 transvestites in Karachi and 0.4 million throughout Pakistan. They are the most neglected and excluded group in Pakistan. Many among Pakistan's transgender community scrape a living through dancing, singing and begging on the streets of Karachi. Others earn money catering for the sexual needs of men in the city's seedier districts. Thrown out by their families as children, they usually find their way to the tougher parts of the city where, hidden from the conservative mainstream, groups of outcast transsexuals have come together to create underground communities or 'families'. Though Pakistani society is shy of talking about them, but they have come out of the shadows following Supreme Courts landmark judgment which ruled that transvestites are entitled to inheritance and other rights. They are victim of the prejudice both by state and the society. The society only considered them to be a liability rather than an asset. So much is discrimination against the transvestite people that during live talk shows on radio, some of the people declared them a curse on the earth and demanded to put them in concentration camps. Man is not a biological phenomenon by birth. It took a hell of time with an orientation in a particular direction and constant messages reinforcing it that make a man. Nevertheless his physical appearance, it was in the state of mind that somebody becomes a man or stops being so. Transvestites are excluded and are put at a distance from the sphere of the society where men and women live; they have everything to do with them. Society is victim of impressionistic notions. First thing we should do to change the perception about this group. They need to be distinguished from sex workers. Who should be allowed to identify themselves as a distinct gender, as per the apex courts ruling. They should be included in government support programme that would help them develop skills to be respectable and contributing members of the society. Pakistani society and law continues to their discriminatory attitude towards the transvestites. They must be recognized as equal citizens of Pakistan. Transvestites are a community of transsexual people often thought of as a 'third sex'. Law in Pakistan however is silent when it comes to defining them as 'third sex'. Pakistani society should change their attitude towards transvestites and consider them as equal citizen of Pakistan and they should be given equal opportunities so that they may contribute their share in our society of which they are a part. Transgender persons do not have the same level of rights as other Pakistanis. They are also routinely harassed, face discrimination, and in some cases are subjected to violence simply for being transgender. Transgender were until very recently not entitled to Pakistani nationality. They still have scant access to education, employment or state protection, and are frequently victims of violence, although most of Karachi's population tolerate them, partly due to beliefs that they can give blessings towards a happy and successful life and, equally, the threat that they may curse those who treat them badly. Pakistan does not have civil rights laws to prohibit discrimination or harassment on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation and there is no legal recognition of same-sex marriage or civil unions in Pakistan. In most South Asian nations, a concept of third gender prevails where members of the same are referred to as neither man or a woman. Pakistan is no different and has a vibrant culture of hijras. Their presence in society is usually tolerated and are considered blessed in the Pakistani culture. Most hijras are deemed to have been direct cultural descendants of the court eunuchs of the Mughal era. Thought to be born with genital dysphoria and afraid that they might curse one their fate, people listen to their needs, give them alms and invite their presence at various events and functions, e.g., birth of a child, his circumcision or weddings. This mysteriousness that shrouds their existence has born of the fact that the hijra communities live a very secretive life. Nascent epidemics are seen in some cities among Male sex workers and transgenders who form sexual contacts of IDUs. While universally known risk of HIV transmission are present among sex workers, IDUs, a sub-group of men from the general population and other groups, epidemics among male sex workers have preceded those among female sex workers suggesting local nuances in sex behaviors.