TRANSGENDER MARRIAGE IN PAKISTAN

Can you imagine a Muslim country allowing transgender people to have sex-change surgery? To my knowledge, Iran was the only Muslim country in the world where trans people could legally change their assigned-at-birth gender. It’s all because of a brave transwoman (who was born in a man’s body) and her resilience to convince Ayatollah Khomeini to give a fatwa in favor of sex-change operation. But we’ll talk about it later. First, let’s get to the matter at hand in Pakistan. The media outlets are upset that a Pakistani girl posed as a man and married his/her girlfriend. But when I searched about this matter online, I found that it wasn’t a case of homosexuality. This woman legally changed her gender, became a man, and then married his sweetheart. What’s wrong with that? If you do think there’s something wrong with this holy matrimony, let me inform you that, since 2018, trans people have the right in Pakistan to officially change their gender.

A woman named Asimah always felt like a guy trapped inside a female body. She met another woman named Neha, fell in love with her, and then decided to change her gender. After the sex-change operation, the girl turned into a man and named himself Ali Akash. Ali, a transman, married Neha, a cis-gendered woman, in a heterosexual marriage. But Neha’s father wasn’t so happy about this “weird” ceremony so he alleged that Ali was still a woman who had married another woman as a lesbian. Homosexuality, as you know, is still illegal in Pakistan. Neha’s father’s allegations became famous on social media and people started believing that two women had married each other. Then some news agencies showed a journalistic sense of curiosity and interviewed poor Ali. In this Urdu news report, we can see a journalist talking to Ali who categorically denied he was a homosexual. The transman asserted that gay/lesbian marriage wasn’t permitted in Islam and he hadn’t married a person of the same gender. He claimed that he’d changed his gender from female to male and possessed all the necessary documentary evidence to prove he was legally a transman. In the guy’s own words: “As God and His Apostle my witnesses, I have legally and lawfully created a pure connection of marriage.”

Pakistanis don’t have an issue with the people whom we call the hijras or the Khwaja-siras. They are intersex and have abnormal genitalia. Traditionally, they’re known as the people with the sexual organs of both men and women. So, they are members of two genders i.e. male and female. That’s why these hijras call themselves the “Third Sex”. In the last decade, Pakistani courts recognized their status as the third gender. These hijras – though generally mistreated by the local population, forced into a life of banishment from the family, used for dancing, compelled to be engaged in prostitution, and suffering from social ostracization – are pitied upon by social media. Pakistani people believe these hijras have the right to be treated humanely because God made them the way they are. If you ask a normal Pakistani how these intersex people should be treated, he will speak in their favor. Nobody actually hates them. The people hated by Pakistanis are feminists, homosexuals, and – obviously – people who think they’re trapped inside the wrong body. The final category is what we call humans suffering from gender dysphoria. They don’t have that much representation in our traditional society. Almas Bobby is supposed to be the spokesperson of Pakistan’s trans community but he/she’s a shemale (khusra). When Ali Akash was born, she was assigned the female gender. As she grew up, she decided she psychologically felt like a man and needed to be in a male body. Therefore, he’s a man how. This is what Pakistanis aren’t ready to accept and they think a person shouldn’t be allowed to change his/her gender because God made us perfect the way we are.

Before discussing whether Ali the Transman’s claims are religiously or officially valid or not, let’s talk about how our neighboring country of Iran revolutionized its attitude towards the trans community. Have you heard the story of Maryam Khatoon Molkara? She used to be a woman trapped inside a man’s body. She convinced Ayatollah Khomeini to allow trans people to undergo sex-change surgery and get the gender they wanted. Due to her efforts and the benevolence of Khomeini, Iran became the first Islamic country to legally recognize a person’s right to change his/her gender. In 2005, such a surgery cost $3,500 after a team of interviewers was satisfied that you don’t conform with the gender assigned to you at birth.

The story of Maryam (1950-2012) is very touching and heartbreaking. He started writing letters to Khomeini in 1975 when he went by the name Fereydoon. Khomeini was in exile in Paris back in the ‘70s because of his strong criticism of the Shah. In 1978, Maryam went to France to meet the Shiite cleric but was unsuccessful in his lobbying efforts. After the revolution of 1979 when the Shah was deposed and Khomeini returned to Persia as the supreme leader, Maryam was put in jail and tortured for her trans activism. But his strong connections saved him from prison. Then, sometimes in the ‘80s (probably 1983), Maryam decided to confront the Ayatollah again. He held a copy of the Quran in his hands, tied shoes around his neck to demonstrate humiliation, and wore a man’s suit with a beard on his face while his chest sprouted female breasts. He tried to visit Khomeini at his residence in Tehran. The Supreme Leader’s guards stopped him and beat him up. Maryam kept yelling, “I am a woman, I am a woman”. He even bared his chest to show female cleavage and some female guards rushed to cover him under a mantle. Khomeini’s son/brother admonished the guards for beating a woman. He talked to the Ayatollah and Maryam was granted an audience. Khomeini was angry with his guards for manhandling a person seeking shelter. He even called a few doctors and asked them to explain the biological difference between a hermaphrodite and a transgender. Maryam finally spoke with Iran’s leading cleric and convinced him that he (Maryam) needed a sex-change surgery. In 1986, Khomeini issued a historical verdict allowing trans people to legally change their assigned-at-birth gender. In 1997, Maryam became a woman in Thailand because she was dissatisfied with the surgeries performed by Iranian doctors. She married a man in the future and lived a successful life.

Khomeini isn’t the only person to allow trans people to change their gender. An Egyptian cleric named Tantawy also issued a similar fatwa in June 1988. A medical student at al Azhar named Sally Mursi wanted to change his/her gender. Tantawy allowed that person to undergo a sex-change operation.

What does the Pakistani law have to say about people changing their assigned-at-birth sex? In 2018, we passed a law known as the Transgender Person (Protection of Rights) Act. You can read the 19 pages of this resolution online. It defines gender expression as a person’s perceived or apparent gender. Gender identity is defined as a person’s innermost and individual sense of his/her gender. This act allows the citizens of Pakistan to identify themselves as:

1. Male; or
2. Female; or
3. Both; or
4. Neither.

The word “transgender”, as per this law, has three different meanings:

1. An intersex individual (khusra) who has both male and female genital features; or
2. A eunuch who was assigned male at birth but later gets castrated; or
3. A transgender man, transgender woman, Khwaja-Sira, or any person whose gender identity or gender expression differs from the social norms and cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at the time of their birth.

So, as per the third definition, if you are uncomfortable with the gender assigned to you at birth and you think you’re a man/woman trapped inside the wrong body, you are a transgender. Furthermore, a trans person has the right to be recognized by his/her self-perceived gender. Such a person can go to a NADRA office and demand to change his/her name and gender according to his/her self-perceived gender identity/expression. Then the law dictates that any kind of harassment or social discrimination against trans people will not be tolerated. It further obligates the government to provide medical facilities to the trans people. I think it counts as sex-change surgery too. In the section of the trans people’s Right to health, we read the following words: The government will take all essential measures “to ensure transgender persons’ access to all necessary medical and psychological gender corrective treatment.”

I think it strongly signals towards the right of a trans person to undergo gender-corrective surgeryand get the sex he/she psychologically conforms with. With this law, Pakistan became the first Asian country to legally recognize a person’s self-perceived gender identity. According to the 2017 census, more than 10,000 trans people are living in Pakistan. But the trans community claims of having nearly half a million members nationwide. Pakistan’s Aisha Mughal became one of the most successful trans persons of the year 2020 as she – a transwoman – represented her country in the United Nations. This victory of human rights in Pakistan was appreciated worldwide.

Now, let’s revisit the case of Ali Akash and Neha. Ali’s self-perceived gender identity was different from her assigned gender. So, she underwent gender-corrective surgery and became a man. An adult Muslim man is legally allowed to marry an adult Muslim woman. I have no idea why people are condemning this marriage when this law has been there for more than 2 years now. In November 2018, a Peshawar girl asked for the court’s permission to become a man because she always felt like a guy trapped inside a female body. This case was also covered by the Dawn but I don’t know what happened to this Kainat Murad afterward. I do hope the court allowed her to undergo sex-change operation as advised by her medical team.

In June 2016, some Muslim clerics allowed people to marry transmen or transwomen. But, of course, one can argue it referred to the khusra community and not those who are suffering from gender dysphoria. It read:

“It is permissible for a transgender person with male indications on his body to marry a transgender person with female indications on her body,” said the document, signed by 50 clerics and issued on Sunday. “Also, normal men and women can also marry such transgender people as have clear indications on their body.”

(Source)

It seems that, legally, Ali is a real man. As a real man, he has every right to marry a woman of his liking. If a woman wants to marry a transman in our country, the law permits it. We have religious backing of the Shiite Islam in this scenario and, if a person feels like his/her local cleric isn’t supporting him/her, that person can convert to the Shiite version of Islam. As a muqallid of Khomeini and Khamenei, you can have sex-change surgery and become a man or a woman.