History has been made in Pakistan, with 40 transgender people being recognised and granted membership to the local Boy Scouts, based in the city of Karachi, for the first time.
Despite the name, the Pakistan Boy Scouts Association (PBSA) is not gender-specific, allowing trans and non-binary people to take the oath.
Commissioner of the local IPC Sindh Boys Scouts, Atif Amin Hussain, said the PBSA was “open to all, without distinction of origin, race or creed”.
A Pakistani transgender activist. Source: AFP
A secretary of the same group, Akuter Mir, added: “Transgender people are also youth, and we don’t discriminate on the basis of gender.”
With the transgender community in Pakistan fighting ongoing cases of discrimination and violence, advocate Farzana Jan believes the PBSA's recognition is a small step in the right direction.
“We feel that we are being recognised as equal citizens of Pakistan as the level of acceptance among society at large has been increasing gradually,” they told The News after taking the Boys Scouts oath.
Farzana Jan Source: Facebook
Jan was one of the first people in the country to have their gender officially changed to ‘X’.
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