Pakistan's Transgender Tax Collectors

[EnderD_503]

This is an article on Pakistan's most recent move to add a third gender category to national ID cards. Like in many Asian/South Asian nations there is a certain level of tolerance of trans people, but I often find myself wondering how truly accepting these laws are.

Does adding a third gender category for all trans people on national id cards further isolate trans people?

Also, regarding employing trans people as tax collectors, is the state using transfolks as another extension of its "iron fist" so to speak? Is it demonizing them? Does their method of tax collection merely play off social transphobia?

There has been little opposition to the decision by Pakistan's Supreme Court to allow a third gender category, apart from male or female, on the national identity card. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool meets transgendered people in Karachi buoyed by the ruling, but sceptical about whether it can really end the isolation they face.

In the back streets, in a squalid neighbourhood of Pakistan's largest city, is a tiny, shabby apartment.

It is where we find "Shehzadi" getting ready for work.

Wearing a bright yellow dress, and scrabbling around her make-up box, she is doing her best to cover up her decidedly masculine features.

Shehzadi is transgendered: physically male, but psychologically female.

"When I was about six or seven, I realised I wasn't either a boy or a girl," Shehzadi says.

"I was miserable because I didn't understand why I was different. It was only when I met another 'she-male' that I felt peace in my heart and my mind."

Like so many other of the estimated 50,000 transgenders in Pakistan, Shehzadi left home as a teenager, to live with others from the same community.

"I'm happy being with other transgenders, but there are many problems," Shehzadi says. "People don't understand, and they abuse us. It's hard to get somewhere to live, or even to move about normally. I get teased when I stand and wait for a bus."
Separate identity

Shehzadi also shows us her ID card. She is unhappy that it says "male."

But this is something that should soon change.

Remarkably for a conservative country like this, Pakistan is about to introduce a third gender category on its national identity cards.

"Previously, we were having two categories, male and female, for registration," says Brigadier Ehsan ul-Haq, who is in charge of the national database and registration authority in Karachi.

"But this community agitated for a separate identity of their own. They went to the Supreme Court, the court agreed and we will implement it."

Brigadier Ehsan says that to his knowledge there has been no opposition to the ruling, either within the registration authority or outside it.

"I personally feel it is a good decision by our highest court," he says. "Transgenders wanted recognition for their community. Why not reflect them as having a separate identity if it is biologically so?"

The reasons for a relative lack of opposition are complex. Despite the discrimination they face, transgenders have long been accepted as part of the fabric of Pakistani society.

Throughout the Indian sub-continent they have occupied a unique position since the era of the Mughal empire in the 16th Century, when they were given special roles in the royal court.

Pakistan is a Muslim nation and many will note that in Saudi Arabia, transgendered people were given the special role of guarding the Prophet Muhammad's tomb, as they were seen as exemplary devotees with no family ties.

Government jobs

Although recognising the community as having its own gender will not solve all of the transgenders' problems, Pakistan's Supreme Court has made further recommendations.

Commonly in Pakistan, transgenders have either been entertainers, or sex workers, or beggars.

But Pakistan's Supreme Court now says that transgenders should also be allocated a certain number of government jobs.

It specifically recommended they be appointed as tax collectors to utilise their "special skills".

Those special skills are already on display in Clifton one of Karachi's most affluent neighbourhoods.

There Shehzadi joins a group of theatrically dressed, heavily made-up transgenders can be seen sometimes strutting down the wide, quiet, tree-lined streets.

"We knock on the doors of people who haven't paid their taxes," she says.

"We tell them to pay up, but there are some who don't, so we stand on their doorstep and give them trouble and make a spectacle. Then to stop us attracting attention, they pay. I love the job, life's going well!"

The experiment has been judged something of a success by the local authority, too, with Shehzadi's team collecting large amounts of unpaid dues.

Just a handful of transgenders have government jobs at the moment. For the vast majority, finding work is still tough.

It could just be that in Pakistan the lot of this isolated and often ridiculed community might just be getting a little bit better.

But in a moment of reflection, Shehzadi tells us of the things which can never be resolved through any kind of legislation.

"However much we say we are a close community, and call each other 'sister' and 'mother' it is still a lonely existence."

"Most don't have contact with their families, and, of course, they don't have children," Shehzadi says.

"Getting jobs and ID cards is great, but when I die, I know the community will have a party, spend all my money, and then it will be as if Shehzadi never walked on this earth."

"That will always be the reality of our life."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13186958

[Spork]

Does adding a third gender category for all trans people on national id cards further isolate trans people?
I thought this is what many people have asked in several parts of the world. Some might want a third option, while others want to be legally recognized as male/female. Now, if those who want to change their legal gender are put into the third category, with no other option, I wouldn't agree with it. As long as there's a choice, I agree.

As for the article... Well, I'm quite mixed about it. One the one hand, a government job seems better than being a beggar or sex worker. On the other hand, it's sad that they could only come up with that. There are many more jobs that trans people could do.

But society is usually gradual. Who knows. Today they're being paid for this, and it's better than nothing.

Knowing that in my town there's a trans woman who lives in the streets, I would rather she had this job than nothing. I'm sure those women in the article feel the same.

Some of us are really lucky, and might never be able to understand or go through those situations.

[EnderD_503]

As for the article... Well, I'm quite mixed about it. One the one hand, a government job seems better than being a beggar or sex worker. On the other hand, it's sad that they could only come up with that. There are many more jobs that trans people could do.

But social change is usually gradual. Who knows. Today they're being paid for this, and it's better than nothing.

Knowing that in my town there's a trans woman who lives in the streets, I would rather she had this job than nothing. I'm sure those women in the article feel the same.

Some of us are really lucky, and might never be able to understand or go through those situations.

While I certainly agree a job is better than no job, the state of trans people in the east and southeast Asia has been something I've been thinking quite a bit about. Yes, social change is gradual, but I wonder if the nature of the job isn't in itself just playing off cis people's dislike/distrust of transfolks. In a way it makes me think about the late middle ages and early modern period when, for religious reasons, Jews were more frequently bankers than Christians. This gave them the reputation of being "money-hungry" and "greedy" and yet it had nothing to do with any kind of "inherently" Jewish characteristic, but rather the fabric of contemporary society.

The same thing worries me when trans people are given jobs specifically as tax collectors because of their "special skills." If people aren't paying taxes or are paying them grudgingly, and if they begrudge their government for whatever reason, and additionally see members of an already marginalized group acting out that government's work, then they might very well begin to perceive trans people as an inherent extension of the state. As the "enemy" or as "greedy" the way Jews were perceived in the past.

Also, if the method of getting them to pay taxes is "making a spectacle" on their front doorstep, I still get the feeling that the gov't might be using social stereotypes and phobias to their own advantage instead of dispelling them.

Example:

It specifically recommended they be appointed as tax collectors to utilise their "special skills".

Those special skills are already on display in Clifton one of Karachi's most affluent neighbourhoods.

There Shehzadi joins a group of theatrically dressed, heavily made-up transgenders can be seen sometimes strutting down the wide, quiet, tree-lined streets.

"We knock on the doors of people who haven't paid their taxes," she says.

"We tell them to pay up, but there are some who don't, so we stand on their doorstep and give them trouble and make a spectacle. Then to stop us attracting attention, they pay. I love the job, life's going well!"

The experiment has been judged something of a success by the local authority, too, with Shehzadi's team collecting large amounts of unpaid dues.

Again, of course I think it's great that they are trying to give transfolks better jobs. Because as you said it's better than what they typically end up in the east. But I also wonder how society there is changing, or if it's moreso exploitation than really trying to help matters. Like that Thai airline who hired a bunch of transwomen, which is great and all...but then they make them wear nametags that broadcast that they are trans and seem to be doing it for the publicity, given that Thailand is known for its "girly boys." Now their society has created different "types" according to what surgeries they've had and of course they typically only hold certain jobs (same is most places: entertainment, sex industry etc.) I still look at these steps forward with suspicion.

I guess to me, "transitioning" or just living as your true sex/gender for most people I've met is about being yourself rather than what society thinks you should be according to chromosomes and genitals. But then how can you be free and yourself in a society that only allows you to fulfill certain roles or work certain jobs because of your gender identity or expression? I dunno, like I said, I still hold it all with a bit of suspicion.

[Spork]

When I look around, I see that we're still having this issue, no matter what someone is. My straight, cis-gendered friends are discriminated for being of a social class, the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, their disability, their weight, their height, their gender, or their political ideologies.

Sometimes this discrimination will affect the type of education, and jobs they can get.

Examples. One of my friends, cis-gendered and straight, is a young woman of the "low class". How does she and her little brothers get by? Their mother fixes clothes at home.

This is stereotypical of "low class" people. But, do they complain? They don't. And they don't accept charity, or help.

I find myself being drawn by the same mentality of "the tax collecting job gives us bad image". But you know what? It's easy for me to be sitting in my room and say, "it's bad for us."

I know I would rather sweep the streets than do anything like that. But, what if I'm about to be kicked out of my home because I can't afford it? What if I have no one to turn to? Will I deny that job because "it's bad for trans people"?

I will never expect other trans people to make me look good. I'll look good on my own. I'll educate my friends on my own. I can't wait for the LGBT organizations to do everything for me (especially when it seems they completely overlook the T.)

I can disagree with their choice. But it's their life. It's their choice.

[Greyson]

Ender, thanks for posting this article. The article says "the community" took this gender I.D. thing to the Pakistani Supreme Court. I am not going to second guess the wishes of this community.

As an individual I do believe that not all people fit into the binary. Masculinity is not strictly a male trait nor femininity a female trait. Much of gender is constructed and not from our genetics, biology. I know you know this already. Some Trans people do fit into the binary and some do not.

As for limiting, offering tax collector jobs, I agree. I think by limiting jobs to tax collection it is transphobic and rooted in misogyny. But, if I needed shelter, food and the basics, a paying job does trump nada.