Last summer, a friend and I were at a traffic signal in Lahore, the city I grew up in. A transgender person walked towards my air-conditioned car, clapped his (because I’m forced to use a pronoun) hands and extended one out to my window. I took out 20 rupees ($0.20) and gave it to him. I looked over at my friend and he had the most confused look on his face.
“Yo, you know that was a khusra, right?”
This wasn’t a question. It was a declaration of a worldview. My friend was confused as to why I had given the transgender person 20 rupees. Because according to his worldview, the transgender person was clearly worth no more than a sneering remark or 2 rupees.
“It was for his stigma!”, I thought to myself and debated whether to share it with my friend or not. I didn’t. That friend is dead now, and I’m writing this in the hopes that it finds somebody alive and prompts them to take another look at their worldview.
LA Times reports, “The group (Trans Action KP) estimates there are at least 45,000 transgender people in the province, and at least half a million nationwide. Although most live in the shadows, some are hired to dance at weddings and parties, where they are viewed as novelty acts and harbingers of good luck. Others have little way to make a living, except through begging or sex work.
Growing up, I was taught to be nice to other people. It’s just that people were either always male or female.
Things that were not human always made the best cuss words in the fights with siblings. Kutta (Dog). Sooar (Pig). Khusra (derogatory term for transgender people).
I lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Whenever a couple of transgender people came knocking on our door to beg for money, I used to rush out to the terrace so I could look at them get insulted by one of the adults in the house. There were no Sooars in Lahore so no need to worry about them, but Kuttay and Khusray needed to be sneered away at first sight. This was the worldview I grew up with.
Yesterday, a 23 year old transgender person and activist died after being shot seven times and then mocked by medical personnel at the hospital she was taken to.
LA Times reports, Shot seven times in an altercation Sunday, the activist — who went by one name, Alisha — was brought to Lady Reading Hospital, one of the largest medical facilities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where staff dithered over whether to place her in the ward for male patients or female patients. A friend and fellow activist, Farzana Jan, said men at the hospital taunted them outside the emergency room. One asked whether Alisha’s blood was HIV-positive, while another asked for Farzana’s phone number and invited her to dance at a party.
We have no shortage of violence in Pakistan, the land of the pure. Children are slaughtered at their schools because their fathers serve in the army. Christians are blown up because they’re not Muslims. Shi’as and Ahmadis are gunned down because they’re not the right type of Muslims. Women are raped because men think they belong to them. Men are raped because they’re too womanly. This disgusting list continues, but I cannot.
The transgender community, however, seems to have it worse. Forsaken by the government and vilified by the society, babies buried alive and abandoned, able bodied adults forced to beg, dance, get raped only to make ends meet and now, get murdered just because they were born into the land of the pure.
If you grew up with the same worldview I had, know that you were taught wrong.
To the children, it is not okay to use ‘Khusra’ as a term for anybody, be it a transgender person or not.
To the adults, it is not okay to think that transgender people’s lives are worth any less than their own.
To the doctors that mocked Alisha’s wounded body, the Hippocratic Oath stands regardless of the gender of the patient.
To the individuals standing at traffic signals or doorsteps, sneering at transgender people, be better than the 20 rupees I handed out as a petty act of self-vindication. If you are a lawyer, see to it that they do not get taken advantage of. If you are in Public Policy, see to it that they are cared for. If you are religious, pray to whatever God you believe in, to take these people under His care and keep them safe. If you are human, know that you are the same as them.
To the government, fuck you.
