We Sometimes Forget About Trans-People In Other Countries

I have been part of a team that has been working on a research project to survey the trans-population in the greater Hartford area, but some of my team members and friends travel around the world. They work on surveys that study AIDS/HIV in far off places like India, Kenya, South Africa, and China and sometimes they are working with the local transgender community.

One of them sent us this BBC article on the trans-people of Pakistan…

Pakistan transgenders pin hopes on new rights
BBC
April 25, 2011

There has been little opposition to the decision by Pakistan's Supreme Court to allow a third gender category, apart from male or female, on the national identity card. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool meets transgendered people in Karachi buoyed by the ruling, but sceptical about whether it can really end the isolation they face

In the back streets, in a squalid neighbourhood of Pakistan's largest city, is a tiny, shabby apartment.

It is where we find "Shehzadi" getting ready for work.

Wearing a bright yellow dress, and scrabbling around her make-up box, she is doing her best to cover up her decidedly masculine features.

Shehzadi is transgendered: physically male, but psychologically female.
[…]
The reasons for a relative lack of opposition are complex. Despite the discrimination they face, transgenders have long been accepted as part of the fabric of Pakistani society.

Throughout the Indian sub-continent they have occupied a unique position since the era of the Mughal empire in the 16th Century, when they were given special roles in the royal court.
[…]
But Pakistan's Supreme Court now says that transgenders should also be allocated a certain number of government jobs.

It specifically recommended they be appointed as tax collectors to utilise their "special skills".

So what are these “special skills”?

"We tell them to pay up, but there are some who don't, so we stand on their doorstep and give them trouble and make a spectacle. Then to stop us attracting attention, they pay. I love the job, life's going well!"

It is not a job that I would want, but… it is another culture and we cannot not impose our western bias on them. For them this is a job that brings in a regular pay check and having a pay check might be something that the majority of Pakistani might not have. Therefore, having a pay check might elevate them up in social standings. What are the alternatives for them? Would they be a street worker if they didn’t have this job?

"Getting jobs and ID cards is great, but when I die, I know the community will have a party, spend all my money, and then it will be as if Shehzadi never walked on this earth."

"That will always be the reality of our life."