When Kalesh returned home on Muharram this year, he was greeted as the fifth brother/son of his family. He was dressed in a traditional black kurta shalwar and accompanied his brothers to a majlis in the neighbourhood. His mother also took him to the market to buy goats for sadqa.

After 27 years, Kalesh could stand in the streets with his brothers in the month of Muharram, and breathe as a man.

Kalesh, an intersex, transgender man hails from a small town near Lahore. He was born as Aliya but, after reaching puberty, Kalesh’s voice deepened, his facial hair grew, and every day he felt more and more uncomfortable in his female body.

The students and teachers in Kalesh’s all-girls school ridiculed him and asked him why he sounded like a boy when he looked like a girl. “I could never conform to being female, being a woman feels like a burden on my soul,” he says.

Transmen are small in number and thus less visible in society but they hope to challenge societal norms and make space for themselves

The discussion around transgender rights in Pakistan is centred around transgender women or Khwaja Sira, who have been a part of the Subcontinent’s history for at least 4,000 years. Transgender men in Pakistan are far less visible.

Last month, the Sindh Moorat March, a march to raise awareness about trans rights, brought the struggles of transmen to light. The organising committee of 15 members consisted of five transmen, including Kalesh as well as Reza and Shahzaib, who Eos spoke to for a better understanding of the issues they face.

THE CNIC DILEMMA

Perhaps the most pressing obstacle for transmen is documenting their gender. Those transmen who do not undergo gender reassignment surgery are not eligible to apply for the CNIC with an ‘M’ or ‘X’ gender. The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) recognises the transgender individuals’ identity through option X, but the process to get their CNIC is difficult.

Most transgender men want to identify as male on their CNIC and not X, says Kalesh.

When Kalesh visited Nadra’s office a few months ago, authorities asked him for medical evidence of his gender from a specific government hospital. Kalesh did not undergo any surgery but he did seek medical advice, and had his hormones tested, which showed his testosterone was closer to a man’s normal range. The tests also revealed that Kalesh had no female reproductive organs, and his genetic report states that he has male chromosomes.

However, when he went to the Nadra-assigned government hospital, the doctors there refused to acknowledge him as an intersex and were unable to issue him the medical certificates needed for his CNIC.

Kalesh now faces a plethora of problems. He is unable to open a bank account and, despite having transitioned, he is enrolled in his university under his old name and gender. The only option Kalesh has left is to file a case against Nadra, but he is struggling to find a lawyer who will take his case.

Recently, on his first flight to Lahore, Kalesh was stopped by airport security, since his CNIC lists him as female. “I was very scared,” he says, since he does not have any documentation to prove his gender identity.

Similarly, Shahzaib, a 23-year-old transgender man, too is having trouble getting his CNIC. Shahzaib says he is often stopped by policemen when he is driving, as he is mistaken for an underage boy. But when he shows them his CNIC, they say he’s showing them an identity card for a woman.

Shahzaib works in the corporate sector but is struggling to get his HR department to change his gender on his personnel files. He is still misgendered.

Those who cannot afford gender reassignment surgery — or do not want to — are legally seen as women.

SOCIAL STIGMAS

Unable to live lives in the gender they identify with, transmen struggle fitting in. Shahzaib recalls how he was forced to cover up in a burqa. Kalesh says that, after puberty, he had to wear a dupatta at all times and face numerous other restrictions.

Transmen often face many problems at home with their families, especially when they want to change their appearance. Families often don’t support them getting their hormones tested, let alone receive hormone therapy.

Shahzaib’s family is conservative and did not support his career choices when he was at university. They had made a plan to marry their daughter off before she turned 25. He found a community when he began to engage in activism; he became a part of the organising team for the Aurat March, despite his family’s staunch opposition.

The transmen Eos spoke to said their families saw them as “tomboys” when they were young but struggled as they got older and wanted them to marry.

Dr. Sana Yasir, an intersex educator and gender-affirming physician said these attitudes have a profound impact on transmen.

“I see them having a lot of self-doubt, low self-esteem, lack of confidence and depression when their family refuses to help them understand their sense of identity,” she says.

In 2020, before Kalesh began pursuing a degree in computer science, he was studying at a different college in Karachi. As Kalesh had not yet transitioned and had a masculine voice, his hostelmates were suspicious of his identity and tricked him into visiting the hospital with the pretence of getting a mandatory Covid check. At the hospital, Kalesh was asked to do a blood test, chest scan and ultrasound to verify if he was a girl or not. When his intersex identity was revealed, he was expelled from the hostel.

Sense of community

Transmen can often find a sense of community among the Khwaja Sira.

“I am an official chela in the transgender community,” smiles Shahzaib. A chela lives under the advice and support of his guru, an older, experienced, transgender woman who is the head of the Khwaja Sira household, he explains. “If you look at history, transmen, or those women who didn’t want to marry or didn’t consider themselves women, had a place in Khwaja Sira households. So, to this day, they carry this tradition on.”

“The Khwaja Sira community has had a longstanding relationship with Mai Munday,” explains Dr. Mehrub Moiz Awan, a Khwaja Sira social media activist. Mai Munday are transmen in Khwaja Sira Farsi. “They used to come to the Dera of the Khwaja Siras, and act as their brothers, and sometimes even they lived in our Deras. All masculine responsibilities were undertaken by these transmen.”

Similarly, the online transgender community has been instrumental in forming a sense of community among trans. Having online forums to interact helps transmen connect with each other.

Kalesh met other transmen through a Whatsapp group and has increased his social circle. Today, he is connected with Intersex Asia, a collective of intersex activists and movements in Asia, and is also part of the Sindh Moorat March.

He is hopeful that, in the coming years, transmen will also be taking the stage to demand their rights and will be more involved in politics.

The writer is a freelance journalist currently pursuing a degree at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 17th, 2023