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Thursday March 28, 2024

Better visibility

By Editorial Board
March 31, 2018

Pakistan is well prepared for Transgender Visibility Day which falls today and is observed globally as an occasion to show respect to transgender persons and encourage them to adopt an equal role in public space. Just days ago, Pakistan’s first transgender news anchor, Marvia Malik, took to the airwaves on a Lahore-based television channel, with the event going viral across social media. Marvia was a student of media at Punjab University and has also worked as a model. She was however keen to demonstrate that more career paths can be opened for transgender persons; and her role on television certainly assists in this. Pakistan has some of the world’s most progressive laws on transgender persons, with the Supreme Court in 2009 granting them rights as equal citizens to hold CNICs, to vote and to gain government jobs. Since then, the Senate has passed another law to grant them better protection, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has made it possible to obtain driving licences by identifying as a third-gender person and other measures have continued to remove them from their traditional role of beggars, dancers or musicians. As a result, Pakistan has seen its first transgender catwalk model walk down the ramp and another person with a third sex identity obtain the leading role in a romantic film.

These are important achievements, which put Pakistan ahead of most South Asian countries, and possibly even much of the Western world. Whereas in the US, the UK and other countries transgender persons have roles as actors, musicians, comedians, models and other similar fields, aside from a few who have made their mark as writers, scientists and analysts, the employment spheres open to them are also still limited. Of course Pakistan too has a long way to go. Despite the new visibility for transgender people, with Marvia Malik leading the way, most from the community still live in poverty and face severe discrimination. On Tuesday, another transgender person was killed in Peshawar, joining the dozens targeted in that province over the past months. The latest census counted just over 10,000 transgender persons in Pakistan, a statistic that is disputed by the community which says there are far more. Marvia Malik and others are helping them gain greater understanding among citizens from whom the reality of their lives often remains hidden. Pakistan’s transgender community continues to face ridicule; perhaps Marvia’s visibility on mainstream TV could help alter this. More effort is needed to bring transgender persons into varied fields of employment so that they can cross the lines that still hold them back and assume the right to lead full lives in society.