The world has its own way of identifying subjects in dichotomy, binary and comparisons. It only narrates about bright sunny days and pitch dark nights, about facts and assumptions, about reality and fantasy, happiness and sadness. There is no medium ground in our vocabulary for the experiences falling under a different context. No neutral setting to express things beyond the said regularities, beyond the authorized normal. Similarly, the world has been seeingthe gender in only two different shades, the pink and the blue, forgetting that these shades are the two ends of a wide spectrum of beaming hues and tones.
In Pakistan, “Khuwaja sira” is an umbrella term for people belonging to the non-conformity gender, the forgotten hues of the spectrum.
Muhammad Arif swallowed a thick lump of numbness and sorrow and said “we’re the people that are forgotten, but will forgetting actually end our existence? Would it help?” Arif is one of many non-binary individuals,who identify themselves with a masculine identity. He despises being called a “khusra” by the men of his community in order to ostracize him from the general communal meetings at his native village in Kasurdistrict. On being asked if he ever received any sort of formal education, one could see his face suddenly lighten up, a smile settled on the corners of his lips, as if he really wanted somebody to ask him something that doesn’t reduce him to a specific gender. He told us that he has done Matric from a local school and then he paused for a while, we could see the smile slowly and then all at once fade away, leaving behind remorse in his eyes and he continued “I always wanted to be a journalist, but the fate had something else to offer, my favourite journalist is Raes Ansari and Benazir Shah, they both speak and write so eloquently with reason and clarity. I am one of the luckiest, you see, not every Khuwaja Sira gets to weave a dream, not every Khuwaja Sira gets an education, had I been given enough relief, you would’ve read my articles in national dailies too”.
The trajectory of their tragedy lies in determining of their educational, freedom, mobility, and health care rights on the basis of gender identities. If proper facilitation or say, basic amenities are given equally to all, despite the sexual orientation or gender specification, the fabric of our otherwisewithering society can be kept intact.
areeshalatif 