Notes

Pakistan's transgender community lies in a city that does not want it

Beenish Ahmed June 4, 2014

Today, at age 35, my interlocutor says it all becomes red and can not help but clench your fists when referring to her as if she were a man.

Khushboo, whose name means "fragrance" is defined as a hijra. It is common in South Asia which includes transgender and transsexual people designation and transvestites and eunuchs.

Its definition of itself and hundreds of thousands of other hijras in the region is somewhat different: "Our souls are female, our bodies are male," she said, dipping a cloth in a plastic bucket red, filled with a mixture of chalk and water foundation. Surrounded by a group of other hijras in a room they call their "office" Khushboo happens cloth soaked face and adds: "Since I was little, I know I am a hijra."

She often wore the garments of his sisters. At 16, Khushboo escaped from her wearing their clothes. It is not returned for years. She moved with another hijra in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan, located not far from his hometown of Karachi. A night drive just to go from one city to another.

Peshawar has long been home to cultural traditions that advocate a strict separation between the sexes. In recent years, the influence of radical Islam has been growing larger. These intolerant and conservative beliefs are obvious because of the bombings and shootings that occur every day. Taliban suicide bombers killed 85 worshipers in a church in Peshawar last September. In February, militants killed 13 people in a theater that projected pornographic films. Less severe attacks are regularly in local newspapers. Blood foxes too often city streets, and the sound of sirens is increasingly pervasive.

Khushboo shows me the smashed doors and broken windows that surround it. She explained that young men - she calls "boys universities" - have wreaked havoc among the hijras, who are now preparing for a show that will take place the same evening. "Sometimes people read sacred texts and hit the hijras, which they should be ashamed to dance to earn a living, tells me she. Sometimes they force them to dance or begin to violate them. "

Despite the wave of extremism raging in the city since his arrival, Khushboo has a certain affinity for Peshawar. This is where she felt reborn and has been living under a new identity.

From his brothers and his father, who beat her, Khushboo was able to live his new life openly - even if it sometimes felt dishonored his mother and sisters. She was adopted into a new family.

"Among hirjas we mothers. We gurus. We Uncles and aunts, "she says. She points to a hijra rolling a joint in a corner of the room. "This is my daughter. I'm someone's daughter, so she is also a grandmother. And a father. "

I ask a little more about the "daddy" of the girl and Khushboo replied: "His father is married to someone else, but he loves me." She explains what this relationship, first pragmatically. But his story soon takes a tragic turn: "If I get sick, it happens to me and gives me medicine, she says proudly. If I do not have money it just drop me a little liquid. If I die, it is he who will disguise myself as a man, take my body home and take care of my funeral. It certainly does not tell the whole story, he would simply say that I was murdered on a market day or I was caught in a shootout. But it will take care of the funeral. "

I can not help thinking that Khushboo spoke with her "husband" of the disaster event, and they agreed on this story.

"In Pakistani society, the sense of belonging is very important, and also the family," says Dr. Jamil Ahmad Chitrali, a professor of anthropology. "There is no alternative."

Chitrali works at the University of Peshawar. He has conducted studies on the hijra community in the city. He believes that the same type of forging family ties they had in their former lives, hijras create a social order that mimics the society they sought to flee.

"This is tantamount to forcing revolutionary individuals who oppose the traditional opposition between genders to share a structure that reaffirms patriarchy" after him.

The situation of Pakistani hijras has evolved in recent years, despite the fact that they isolate themselves from society. In 2012, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed that a "third gender" is added on identity cards, which gives more weight to the legal level. It is through this increased recognition that hijras were able to vote in the last presidential elections that took place this year - at least five hijras have applied.

But this new classification including a third type has not had much impact on the lives of Khushboo. "We live in a world marginalized," she says. The difference between his life and that of a person is cisgender as extreme as the difference between the life of a Pakistani and that of a resident of Monaco.

"Whatever I do, I will always be regarded as someone different, she says. Even if I give up dancing, everyone will consider me as a hijra. What's the change? Why not continue doing what I love? "She added that although she reconvertissait evangelist in his family always look with contempt. "I rather stay a hijra interest. "

The biggest challenge that faces Khushboo is his family. She got in touch with them as she had not spoken to them for five years. Since it makes their visit to Karachi at least once a year. But when she goes to see them, she dresses as a man.

Although she is dressed as a woman in the streets of Peshawar, Khushboo wearing a black long-sleeved dress (an abaya) and a veil that covers her face (niqab). Only his eyes are visible, allowing him to hide from prying eyes. Still, she was kicked out by people who fear that hijras have a bad influence on the neighborhood.

Hijras occupy spaces marginalized in Pakistan. But they probably can not be worse off than Peshawar. In all other major cities of the country, they settled in malls or on the street at intersections and pray in exchange for a few rupees. Many passersby are afraid of being damned if they do not know, they give them money or away from them quickly.

I spent a lot of time in Peshawar, and I've never seen hijras appear in public as they do in other cities. After discussing with Professor Chitral, I learned that it's probably because hijras have a different role in Pashtuns who dominate the area of ​​Peshawar. In this part of the country, we do not consider that hijras are more important than people cisgenres spirituality. Their role is primarily related to celebrations and festivals. They are often asked to sing and dance during weddings or to celebrate births.

"Their performance gives social recognition to families," says Chitral. But this tradition is gradually disappearing, because marriages are increasingly in reception rooms rather than in family homes. Some hijras have other jobs - Khushboo says that some of her friends hijras are lawyers or pilots and behave as if they were cisgenres order not to lose their jobs. They are free to "be themselves" among the hijras. As they are not well accepted by the society, many of them are marginalized. They earn a meager income as artists, but they also have a role as educators. Hijras are involved in the sex education of young men; some will even initiate. Many inhabitants of Peshawar fold to particularly strict religious and cultural norms considering premarital sex as a sin. For them, hijras, are seen as an in-between as a "cushion" that would soften the blow, in the words of Chitral.

"Cross the masculine with the feminine, it is a practice that goes against the culture, beyond the limits. But you can always be in the shadows. " Chitrali then explains that this "learning" is becoming increasingly rare because of information that can be found on the internet.

While his "daughter" Laila and prepare for a dance, Khushboo receives calls from potential customers.

In Peshawar, a city of more religious, the presence of hijras - whether dancers or prostitutes - is frowned upon and politicians try to attract the sympathy of people in driving them from their homes and their places of job.

By attending this, Malik Iqbal has said he wanted to act. "I feel compassion for them, nobody is ready to welcome them," he tells me.

He rented office that Khushboo and other hijras use to prepare before their performance. "

"Before, I was not on their side, says Iqbal. Now I help. They are human beings too, we should empathize. Not only me, but everyone. "

But some believe that the link between the hijras Iqbal goes beyond compassion. Even if he refuses to talk, Iqbal was arrested in 2010 for trying to marry a hijra, Rani. Such a union would be illegal in the eyes of Pakistani law, which does not recognize marriages between persons of the same sex. He denied the accusations and repeatedly stated that the police had tried to extort money from the hijras at an event that was not a wedding, but a simple birthday party. Whatever the truth, The shock story among ordinary Pakistani reveals the gap that there is between them and the community of hijras. A successful film called Bol, or Speak - released in 2011 - could help some people understand this community, but strong ties such as those of Iqbal with hijras are not common.

Those close hijras do not sympathize with their situation so far. Noor Illahi, which sells seeds near the office of hijras, has no problem with the hijras themselves or their work, but he thinks they should settle other. "My business has suffered the consequences of their presence. Other shop owners and I think we should find them a place to live on the outskirts. A separate town "location.

He works in his shop for 15 years. He says his sales have fallen 50% since the hijras were installed next few years there. "There are a lot of fights now. They really are scenes sometimes. "

The uproar that followed their installation has driven customers. Those who visit the area are more interested in the hijras as his goods.

"They do not offend me personally, but look at this," he said, pointing to a group of men loitering outside the building hijras. "These poor people have won three or four hundred rupees (between 4 and 5 euros) working all day, and they come here and spend it all.

These men are all rickshaw drivers. Each denies there to have sex. "We are here to discuss with them," says one of them while looking over his shoulder to see if a hijra went out into the alley. "We have quite innocent relationships with them."

In the office of hijras, the lights went out due to a power outage relatively common in Pakistan. They will probably ready in an hour for their show. When they leave, they will be dressed large shawls and will hide in the night.