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Pakistan: Queer freedom within the educated elite

Fun Fast Facts:

  • Being LGBT is a taboo vice and homosexuality has been illegal since 1860, punishment can be imprisonment for life.
  • No same-sex marriage or civil unions; Article 496 dictates seven years imprisonment for participating in a mock marriage ceremony.
  • Growing tolerance for social gatherings of gay men in the cities.
  • In 2009 transsexuals were granted civil rights.

 

W3JOY interviewed: Alyena Mohummadally, Chair of the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council

 In school in Pakistan, I used to identify as bi-sexual then, in high school. It was never an issue then.

 

Pakistan, like Australia, is divided into classes…the class that we belong to is known as the ‘educated elite’ which means that everyone has gone to Uni…when you’re in that world things aren’t as difficult…for being gay or lesbian or queer…no one really cares.

 

I can live in a class where I can drink any alcohol that I want, although alcohol is illegal in that country….but the government has to appeal to the masses and the masses are poor.

 

Since Iran, Persia, the Mongol empire, there were an entire class of men [Hijras] who were allowed into the women-only areas and had these special places of privilege and power and position in the emperor’s courts and the kingdom because they weren’t men as strictly speaking men are. However, because they still had the physical strength of men and they still thought like men, they were still men, yet they were also women because of their lack of genitalia….It was a kind of flowing, free world that Hijras had.

 

Hijras, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who do not understand them. In the city, I am told, they lead a horrible, horrible life. They are more protected when they live out in the village.

 

They are very, very visible, but you’re not going to see them running government or multinational corporations.

Published on: Sep 22, 2012 @ 2:54

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