NUMBERS serve as a critical tool in the fight for social change. Hence the old adage, ‘there is strength in numbers’. However, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics seems to be denying the transgender community just that — their numbers.

According to census 2017, there are 10,418 transgender people in Pakistan. It need not be stated how laughably inaccurate this figure is. Liberal estimates place the transgender population between 1.7 to two per cent of Pakistan’s total population, while more conservative estimates place them around 0.5pc. Yet, somehow, PBS has managed to record a mere 0.0048pc. The census figure also stands in stark contrast to the data maintained by trans-rights organisations such as NAZ, which alone has over 20,000 transgender persons registered with it in Punjab.

The reluctance of a significant number to register as transgender due to fear of ostracisation is certainly a key factor in the census figure being inaccurate. But there is a more gruesome side to this figure, one that indicates the perpetuation of societal biases through the use of state machinery.

Trans-rights activists have rejected the census figure, citing instances of census teams refusing to visit transgender gharanas, or refusing to register transgender persons not possessing a CNIC, or those not registered as transgender on their CNICs, and in some cases, simply registering them as males against their will.

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2017 defines a transgender person as “a person who is (i) neither wholly female nor wholly male; or (ii) a combination of female or male; or (iii) neither female nor male; and whose sense of gender does not match with the gender assigned to that person at the time of birth, and includes trans-men and trans-women, persons with intersex variations and gender-queers”.

Trans-rights activists have rejected the census figure.

The parliamentary definition of a transgender person thus travels far beyond our traditional conception of a hijra as a simple hermaphrodite donning a female attire and identity. In light of this definition, the PBS has failed — miserably.

Censuses are meant to record ‘accurate’ data to facilitate governments to allocate federal funding for education and social alleviation programmes and implementation of fundamental rights, among other things. And the transgender community in Pakistan is in dire need of a federally funded alleviation programme.

Transgender people are often brutally marginalised, shunned by families, alienated from inheritance, and bullied by state officials and society. Having little, if any, opportunity to acquire a decent education or technical skills, most are condemned to a life of undignified poverty, forced to earn through begging and prostitution. Those who manage to make a meagre living for themselves are refused all elements of sympathy and compassion, and must fend for themselves even in basic aspects of life.

Thus we see how ordinary people strive to avoid an approaching hijra at the marketplace, or refuse to acknowledge their presence when they descend upon us, exploiting our latent guilt through their flamboyant chants, claps and songs. We also silently observe when a transgender is refused a bed in a hospital in Peshawar after being shot, and when burnt transgender bodies are found on the outskirts of Islamabad, and when extortionists in Sialkot strip transgenders naked and beat them in full view of the camera with impunity, while others cower in the background, desperately hoping to maintain their own dignity.

But the situation is not all bleak for the transgender community. Much like every aspect of Pakistan’s socio-political landscape, waves of hope amidst a sea of despair manage to reach the shore. One such example is the landmark case of Aslam Khaki Vs. SSP (Operations), Rawal­pindi, where the Sup­reme Court granted recognition to the ‘third gender’ directing Nadra and other data collection agencies to make appropriate provisions for transgender people on their forms, and held that transgenders have full constitutional protection, and could not be excluded from their inheritance, or denied basic amenities, by either private individuals or state functionaries.

Social media is abuzz with transgender people breaking records; becoming university lecturers and fashion models, running college canteens or simply obtaining the first passports with the ‘third gender’ category. Meanwhile legislators in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are drafting a bill for protection of transgender rights, as the National Assembly mulls over similar legislation.

However, to make any lasting headway, the voice of the transgender community needs to be heard much louder. And a louder voice comes with larger numbers. Our transgender community deserves the full strength of their numbers, for while we remain comfortably oblivious to our ill treatment of them, the least we can do is to allow them a fair battleground on which to fight for their rights.

The writer is a barrister and lecturer of legal jurisprudence.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2017