Being transgender is not a choice

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Karachi

Payal* was born a boy. But at 33, she looks like any other woman with her long hair and carefully applied pink lipstick. The transformation cut her off from her family and ostracised her from the society.

“Those were tough times,” she recalls. “It was only when I reached the sixth grade at school I began to feel uncomfortable in my body.”

She would hide from her family and apply makeup on her face. Or stand in front of a mirror and cover her head with a dupatta. “I felt like an alien. I could not picture myself as my father when I grew up. I wanted to be like my mother. It was a feeling no one understood.”

At school she was bullied for being a sissy. The neighbourhood boys made fun of the way she walked. That she would always be an outcast was a fact she settled down with early on in life… until she was introduced to a community of transgender people where she found peace. “I could wear makeup and talk like women – without being judged,” Payal says.

But the ghettos that they lived in had problems. The society had reserved certain roles for them: they could dance at weddings, beg on the streets or sell cheap sex. There was a time when Payal got a job as a receptionist at a private office for Rs15,000 a month, but as her identity was revealed and rumours started spreading at the workplace, she was asked to resign quietly.

 

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Who are they?

There are 70,000 transgender people in Sindh alone, according to the community leaders. As their movement to get equal rights in the society and acceptance in public space picks up, there is a need to understand who they are. Is being transgender a physical or mental disorder? Is it nature or nurture?

Nausheen Salim, a senior instructor at Aga Khan University Hospital who specialises in sexual health, says being a transgender person is a physical condition rather than a psychological problem. She divides the transgender people into three broad types.

“The first kind is hermaphrodites. This is a rare disorder where a person may have both male and female organs. A person who looks like a male and has male sexual organs may internally have female anatomy. So there have been instances that a young boy when he hits puberty suddenly begins to menstruate.”

The condition is rare, only 1 in 1,000 transgender people may have it. Most have a hormonal imbalance and so don’t feel comfortable in their bodies. “When a child is born, he has equal amounts of the male hormone, testosterone, and the female hormone, oestrogen. As one hits puberty, oestrogen levels increase in females while testosterone levels increase in males.”

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In case of an imbalance, there will be visible problems in both women and men, such as overgrowth of hair in women or a female voice in men. “But when the imbalance is drastic, a person may want to copy the opposite sex,” says Salim. “It is not something that an individual can control. You are born with an identity disorder.”

The third kind is a different story altogether. “Young boys are picked up by gangs and castrated. They are then used by the begging mafia. Others dress up as women due to severe poverty and beg for a living.”

Dr Ayesha Mian, the head of the Aga Khan University Hospital’s psychiatry department, states that being transgender is something that cannot be undone. “If a child is copying another sex, it may be because of anxiety or some other factors. This can be treated. But if the cause is because of hormonal imbalance, it cannot be cured.”

“It is not a mental state like depression which can be fixed. If a parent finds his child acting like the opposite sex after he hits puberty, he should seek professional help. And then the transformation should proceed in a healthy way,” said Mian.

Salim also agrees. “Even in normal circumstances, puberty is a confusing phase for children. Most parents don’t inform their children about why their body is undergoing changes. And in the case of a transgender, it is even more difficult, because no one understands them.”

Payal is hopeful of the campaign her friends in the transgender community have started. It has managed to get them a legal identity, voting rights and government jobs. But she understands that the time when she can compete on equal terms for a job as a doctor, engineer or journalist will take years to come. “After all even women are not taken seriously yet. And they have been fighting for their rights since the 80s.”

*Name changed to protect privacy

originally published here 

The liberal PPP keeps its largely rural vote bank uneducated

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Karachi

Since its creation in the 70s, the Pakistan People’s Party has claimed being a liberal political force in the country. It hates the Taliban because they bomb schools and oppose critical thinking, and education, they claim, is the only road to development.

In their election manifesto for this term, the PPP promises to achieve universal primary education. For a party which has been in power for decades, educating its largely rural vote bank should have been a priority.

But a recent report on the state of education of the country reveals that Sindh lags far behind other provinces. Even the terrorism-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is doing better.

The News quotes data from the Annual State of Education Report to present to its readers the abysmal learning levels of districts from which prominent leaders of the party hail from.

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Larkana

This is the land of the great Bhuttos. Here, inside a white-domed mausoleum, lie the PPP martyrs, the Oxford-educated Benazir Bhutto and her charming father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The district also happens to be the hometown of Senior Education & Literacy Minister Nisar Khuhro.

Here 15.8 percent children remain out of school. Among the children who do attend school, girls continue to lag behind.

Of the total students at government schools, only 31 percent are girls. In the private sector, representation of girl students is a mere 29 percent.

Learning levels in Urdu and Sindhi are such that 20 percent children in grade-five cannot read a single word in their mother tongue.

When it comes to English language skills, only 20 percent children in grade-five can read a sentence. Arithmetic skills are such that 44.5 percent children in grade-five cannot solve a two-digit subtraction sum.

This state of illiteracy is not just prevalent in the present generation. The past generation was affected by it as well: only 21 percent mothers and 48 percent fathers have completed their primary education.

Khairpur

This is the land of the great Bhuttos. Here, inside a The three-time Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah still has his ancestral house here. In Khairpur 21.1 percent children are out of school.

Among the children who attend school, girls continue to lag behind. At government schools their representation is only 35 percent and at private schools the number is even lower at 27 percent.

Learning levels in Urdu and Sindhi are such that 37 percent cannot read a sentence in their mother tongue.

When it comes to reading a sentence in English, only 42.5 percent children in grade-five are able to do so.

Arithmetic skills are so weak that 41.4 percent students in grade-five cannot solve a two-digit subtraction sum.

Only 20 percent mothers and 45 percent fathers in the district have completed their primary school education.

Dadu

This is the hometown of former education minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq. Here 31.3 percent children are out of school, most of them girls.

Among the children who are getting some sort of schooling there is again a wide gender disparity. Against every 13 boys at a government school, there are seven girls.

Learning levels of Urdu and Sindhi are so low that 19.3 percent children in grade-five cannot read anything in their mother tongue.

English language skills are also poor: only 27 percent children in grade-five can read a sentence. When it comes to arithmetic skills, 40 percent students in grade-five cannot solve a two-digit subtraction sum.

Only 22 percent mothers and 59 percent fathers have completed their primary education.

Through the efforts of the PPP, last year Sindh became the first province to turn Article 25A into legislation. It declares that free and compulsory education for children aged five to 16 is a right everyone is born with. But for now, it will take more than a legislation to send the children of Sindh back to school.

originally published here

illustration courtesy Faraz Maqbool