Fact-check: Social media posts, politicians share incorrect claims about Pakistan’s transgender law

Pakistan’s law guaranteeing basic rights for transgender people has sparked controversy, as religious groups say it legalizes same-sex marriage and homosexuality in the country.

The claim is false.

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act was passed by the Parliament of Pakistan in 2018. The law prohibits discrimination against transgender people in schools, workplaces and public places, as well as ensuring their right to vote, inherit property and run for public office.

Claim

That year, politicians from the religious political parties, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (Fazal), started a row, insisting that the law was against Islamic beliefs and should be amended immediately.

On the other hand, Tehreek Labak Pakistan (TLP) submitted a resolution in the Sindh Assembly against the implementation of the law. While Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing has organized several study circles in colleges against the law and termed it as “a dagger in the Islamic Republic”.

On September 16, two hashtags #Amendtransgenderact and #Amendtransgenderact also started trending on social media. Both hashtags have amassed over 5,000 tweets and videos with several thousand views to date.

Social media users and conservative politicians accused the law of allowing gender reassignment surgeries, same-sex marriage and cross-dressing. They also claim that since 2018, when the law was passed, more than 23,000 people have changed their gender.

Reality

Claims that the law would allow men to change their gender to female and women to change to male are false on official documents.

The law clearly defines a “transgender person” as someone who is “intersex” with a mixture of male and female genital characteristics or a transgender person who was assigned male gender at birth but undergoes castration. or a trans person whose gender identity differs from the gender assigned at birth.

The rules of the Act further specify that a transgender person will have to approach the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for change of name or gender on identity documents, such as their self-identified identity. And NADRA will only change their gender from female to category “X” or male to category “X”.

“X” is the third gender symbol in Pakistan, a classification created specifically for the trans community in 2009 on a Supreme Court order.

The law or rules do not allow men to change their gender to female or vice versa on their CNICs, passports or other travel documents.

The claim that the law allows same-sex marriage and sex reassignment surgeries is false.

There is no mention of it in the Act or the marriage rules or gender confirmation surgeries.

Several social media users also claim that since 2018, 23,000 people have changed their gender according to their wishes. Geofactcheck could not find any data or evidence to support this claim.

In fact, Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Mushtaq Ahmed, who has been openly opposing the law and insisting on its amendment, told the Home Ministry in November 2021 that the total number of applications received by NADRA, For gender release. Replace the certificate between July 2018 and June 2021.

On which the then Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed clarified that NADRA does not issue gender change certificates. “However, gender has been modified. [on official documents] for medical reasons or at the request of transgender persons,” he added, according to documents seen by GeoFactCheck.

They also provided a breakdown of 28,723 trans people whose gender was changed by NADRA on the dates mentioned above.

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Banner photo: Pakistanis march in a rally for World AIDS Day 2013. – AFP