A group of Muslim clerics in Pakistan this week issued a religious edict affirming the right of transgender people to marry.
The ruling, issued Sunday by 50 Islamic clerics in the eastern city of Lahore, said transgender people may marry under Islamic law and that they have the right to be buried in Muslim ceremonies and to inherit property, according to reports from Reuters and Pakistani media. The edict, known as a fatwa, said the Pakistani state is responsible for protecting them.
“We need to accept them as God’s creation, too,” said Ziaul-Haq Naqshbandi, who leads an Islamic organization that requested the fatwa. “Whoever treats them badly — society, the government, their own parents — are sinners.”
Some rights groups said the ruling was confusing and did not do enough to protect the rights of transgender people, who often face abuse and harassment in Pakistan. The fatwa declared that transgender men “with male characteristics” may marry women or transgender women “with female characteristics” may marry men. It did not detail the nature of such characteristics and did not mention people who have undergone sex-change surgery.
But others activists called it a first step toward seeking full legal rights for transgender people through Pakistani courts.
Pakistan has a tradition of accepting transsexuals and people of nontraditional genders as part of society. Some eunuchs and others have been viewed as having mystical powers. They have associations that have long fought for their rights, and the courts ruled in 2012 that they should be given job quotas and ID cards as a recognized minority group. However, they are marginalized from mainstream society, and many work as prostitutes, beggars and entertainers. Men dressed in female costumes and makeup are a familiar sight at public festivals and shrines.
In some cases, transgender people are severely bullied and even killed. The fatwa issued Sunday urged people to be kind to them, saying that “making fun of them, teasing them or thinking of them as inferior is against sharia law, because such an act amounts to objecting to one of Allah’s creations.”