Faith Against Gender: Trans in a Muslim Country
Selling sex is a sin, but there are no other options
Faith is a difficult feat to achieve, especially when it’s not a personal thing in a society. Faith is sometimes used as a weapon against those who do not adopt a more widely considered “natural” course for a social group or community. While the western world has finally started to accept the trans community with open arms, the Muslim world may need more time and a better understanding of its own religion.
It is almost impossible for transgender people to explain themselves as Islamic believers. In this regard, their families are the main source of pressure. Trans men are often made to adapt to their homes somehow because of the fears attached to the feminine body. Inside these households, they must persistently explain how their identity is compatible with the prevailing narrative of faith.
A lot of them have to flee their homes. Family members rarely acknowledge that their loved one may be transgender. The 2017 Housing and Population Census counted 10,418 transgender people in Pakistan — a nation with a population of over 200 million. This figure is unbelievably small, reflecting just a fraction of what the actual number might be; transgender community members believe that number to be at least half a million individuals.
If these are considered the official numbers for the government, the resources promised to the community by the state will be in accordance with these numbers. But many transgender women across Pakistan claim that the census officials incorrectly registered them as males.
In Muslim countries, it is an internalized shame to come forward as transgender and commit oneself to the risks associated with that affiliation — an affiliation that means being socially excluded by the society where they already experience high levels of physical abuse, and face discriminatory behavior in everyday life. Such attitudes from society leave them vulnerable to substance abuse, selling sex for money, and even suicidal ideation.
This disturbingly low tally from the 2017 Housing and Population Census seems to tell the transgender community that, in reality, they might not count.
Transgender people living in Muslim countries hardly have simple lives. They are generally entertainers, and frequently, sex workers. Many are underemployed, homeless, and live in isolated, often precarious communal environments. They cannot marry and are subject to mockery and ridicule. Wedding parties often hire transgender people to dance and enjoy sexual favors, particularly in areas where local women are prohibited from leaving the house. Also, trans people are usually forced out by their families, and many of the estimated 500,000 in the country eventually end up (not by choice) as beggars or sex workers.
It’s not a hard nut to crack why this is so. Social boycott, financial vulnerability, and lack of job opportunities mean that sex work is often the most viable income source available to transgender people — and a high proportion of transgender people indulge in sex work in Pakistan. Unfortunately, this situation does not represent Pakistan alone. For example, the proportion of transgender people as sex workers is estimated to be as high as 90% in India, 84% in Malaysia, and 81% in Indonesia.
This pattern is in line with the complexity of struggles for the rights of transgender people living in Pakistan.
On May 4, 2018, assailants gunned down Muni, a transgender woman who worked as a dancer, when she could not make smaller change for the Rs1,000 note to the men who employed her to entertain at a wedding. Two days later, the Pakistan National Assembly passed a historical law: the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018. The law in Pakistan now allows you to choose a self-perceived gender that goes beyond the norms of a patriarchal society.
While there is a long way to go in enforcing this legislation, there are, at the same time, differences in the understanding of different clauses in this Act. But for starters, banks are now using forms that include a third-gender option for bank account applicants. And under a new government initiative, transgender people can get interest-free loans.
Many of Pakistan’s Muslim clerics endorsed this legislation. In 2016, fifty of them signed a fatwa supporting trans people, saying, “It is permissible for a transgender person with male indications on his body to marry a transgender person with female indications on her body,” and, “… normal men and women can also marry such transgender people as have clear indications on their body.”
Islam is not orthodox. Islam allows debate, and fortunately, there is a lot of focus on what we now call “modern education.” Quran unequivocally accepts the reality of transgender people.
“The dominion of the heavens and of the earth belongs to Allah. He makes whatever he needs. He grants females to whom He pleases and males to whom He pleases (42:50) or offers them a mixture of males and females, and causes who He pleases to be barren. He’s all-knowing all-powerful.’’ — (Qur’an, 42:49–50).
Pakistani society has long considered transgender women to be who they are by looking at them through the prism of failed masculinity.
With the numbers growing every day, it is surprising why trans people are still a subject of taboo. It has been said that perhaps 1 in 10 people are LGBT. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims worldwide. If 1 in 10 is LGBT, it makes 100 million Muslims who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
Better late than never though, Pakistan has started getting a hold of things. A nation that is considered to be socially conservative in terms of gender has begun to display a more progressive side. If the Transgender Protection of Rights Act is effectively implemented — with a focus on accountability — we may see greater recognition of the transgender community and, as a result, decreased violence.
That’s not nothing.
And to a community that has been marginalized, shamed, disowned, persecuted, denied hospital access, raped, brutalized, set on fire, and murdered — that could mean a lot. It could even be life-saving.
