Transgendered people are a part of society but our society especially has entrenched biases against such people like eunuchs etc and it perpetuates these biases and these people are treated as second-class citizens. They are discriminated against by “normal” people from the beginning and they are deprived of their elementary rights. So far jobs are not given to them and they have to resort to begging and dancing on the streets.
Society’s treatment of them is despicable and we must change these attitudes. Fountain House is an organization doing just that. Even though it is a mental health institute, it makes a special effort to deal with transgendered individuals in a congenial manner and provide basic facilities to them. They give money to elderly transgenders and also facilitate them with a grand dinner every month. In this holy month of Ramazan, they arrange iftar parties for them.
Even though the government has taken some steps to ease their difficulties like issuing these people CNICs, giving them jobs etc, it has not been enough and more should be done to take them out of the miserable state their community is in. Not just the government, we as individuals should also try to shelve our biases and try to help these people by including them in society, giving them jobs, facilitating them and ,above all, respecting them.
FATIMA GULL
Lahore
