Pakistan issues first-ever transgender passport

Pakistan has issued its first third-gender passport to a transgender activist, Farzana Riaz, a transgender in north-western Peshawar city, who hailed the move as a step forward for the marginalised community.

Third-gender who are also known as khawajasiras -- an umbrella term in Pakistan denoting a third sex that includes transsexuals, transvestites and eunuchs.

According to details, Farzana is a transgender who had applied for an urgent passport. However, it had taken her six months to get the document processed and have included a separate column for the gender X option. Farzana Riaz the 30-year-old co-founder and president of rights organisation TransAction.

In 2009, Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognise a third sex, allowing transgender people to obtain identity cards, while several have also run in elections. They number at least half a million people in the country, according to several studies. Like Farzana, many earn their living by being called upon for rituals such as blessing newborns or to bring life to weddings and parties as dancers - and, sometimes, in more clandestine ways.

In 2011, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled in favour of allotting a separate column for transgenders in NICs and passports.

Condition of Third gender in Pakistan

Pakistan’s third genders  have faced a long battle to be accepted as full citizens with equal rights according to the country’s constitution. In 2012, a landmark decision by the Supreme Court decreed that they be issued with computerized national identity cards, thus for the first time officially listing their existence as a legal third gender.

However, the National Database and Registration Authority, charged with issuing the cards under the Ministry of Interior, initially dragged its feet, requesting that they undergo humiliating medical examinations first.

Nevertheless, more than four years on, many still do not have cards. One of the main obstacles is that cards can only be issued to those with biological parents or those officially adopted with proper documentation. For those who have been ostracized by or run away from their families (or simply did not know them as they joined hijra communities when very young), this proves an impossibility. Furthermore, the gurus are not considered to be parents by the registration authorities.

Under Islamic Jurisprudence and the Constitution sex/ gender is recognized as male and female (Major Acts, 1987). No separate category is laid down for hermaphrodite/ intersexed. Hence, no figures are available regarding the number of hermaphrodite/ intersexed in the country. Those who are born with sexual deformity (hermaphrodite/intersexed) are assigned sex according to their dominant sex characteristics and are recorded in birth certificate. In Pakistani law, no legal cover/ assistance is provided to transgender who wants to change identity/ legal documents in the light of reassigned sex. The identity registration at the age of 18 is based on sex written on birth certificate and cannot be changed.