Status of Legal Rights of Third Gender in Karachi

Abstract

The study aims to analyze the status of legal rights of third gender community in the country. To do that, firstly constitutionof the country along with important case laws and the transgender - specific law are analyzed; secondly documentaryevidence is sought to analyze the actual status of rights of third gender in the country. The analysis of laws shows that thirdgender community, particularly after the enactment of the Transgender Person (Protection of Rights) Act 2018, are legallyentitled to a comprehensive set of rights like right to inherit, right to education, right to employment, right to vote et cetera.An exploratory qualitative research approach is followed with documents analysis and phenomenology method. To understand the causes of this gap interviews from general public were conducted by employing convenience – basedpurposive sampling. A ample of fourteen respondents belonging to different economic and educational backgrounds was randomly  selected.Semi – structured interviews were conducted with the help of open – ended questionnaire. Thematic
analysis of interviews conducted provides four causes of third gender rights’ violation: People generally think that they are not real trans genders and are pretending to be ones to earn money, they are considered inferior and even disabled, they areconsidered bad and that interaction with them will have an adverse impact on their reputation and because their family does not support them. Therefore, there is dire need to take concrete and practical steps to mitigate the ubiquitous violation of the rights of third gender like providing educational and employment opportunities to transgender persons, improving the law,creating awareness through media and establishment of separate facilities like jails and hospitals for transgender community.