Pakistan’s Transgender Community Aims To Change The Mindsets
Pakistan’s Transgender Community Aims To Change The Mindsets: The transgender community was counted in the national census for the first time in 2017, recording 10,418 in a population of about 207 million although many said this was too low. However, Charity Trans Action Pakistan (CTAP) estimates there are at least half a million transgender people in the country.
In Pakistan the Senate passed a bill to protect transgender people and Pakistani province (KPK) agreed to an X gender on driving licenses. The Supreme Court ruled in 2009 hijras could get national identity cards as a “third sex” and last year the government issued its first passport with a transgender category. Senate approved a bill to protect the rights of transgender people by which transgender people will no longer have to appear before a medical board to confirm their gender.
Maavia Malik is proud to be at the lead of changing attitudes in her country but she says there is a long way to go as the first transgender news anchor in Pakistan. Maavia shoot as she walked the runway at the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week earlier this year for ‘Jeem’ by Hamza Bokhari came into the spotlight after Transgender activist Zara Changezi was named as star of a love film.
Maavia told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that she got a lot of appreciation from those associated with the fashion industry when she did catwalk modeling two weeks back, and now this is quite overwhelming for her. She received positive phone calls and messages for her new role.
Sharing her survival story she said that she was expelled from her home after 10th grade and she joined a beauty saloon. With saloon earning she joined college. While Malik is happy that the government is slowly bringing the community into the mainstream, she said the only way to get meaningful change if is “change begins at home”. So that they do not turn to begging, dancing, selling of their bodies and other illegal activities.