\u00a0The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII)\u00a0warned that the act may lead to \u201cnew social problems\u201d and asked the government to form a committee to review the law related to the transgender community.
\nIt added that the committee should include CII members, religious scholars, and legal and medical experts.
\nSeparately, the council also appreciated the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) amendment laws and urged the government to incorporate other recommendations made by the CII in the law.
\nThe CII’s statement on the bill comes a day after Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani said the committee formed to consider the recently submitted amendments to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act would duly consult religious scholars and the CII, if required.
\n\u201cThe Senate will never do anything against the Islamic laws,\u201d Sanjrani said.
\nSenator Mushtaq Ahmed has filed the amendments to the act which are currently being weighed by the Senate committee.
\nStrongly advising against unnecessarily politicising the issue, he stressed that in case of any controversy, the government was resolved to take the course of the consultation.
\nThe Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act was passed by Pakistan\u2019s Parliament in 2018. The law prohibits discrimination against transgender people in schools, workplaces and public spaces, as well as ensures their right to vote, inherit property and run for public office.
\nThis year, politicians from religious political parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan-Fazl, kicked up a row, insisting that the law is against Islamic tenets and should be immediately amended.
\nSocial media users and conservative politicians accuse the law of permitting gender-reassignment surgeries, same-sex marriages, and cross-dressing. They also claim that since 2018, when the law was passed, over 23,000 people have changed their genders.
\nThe claim that the law will allow men to change their gender to female and women to male on official documents is incorrect.
\nThe law clearly defines a \u201ctransgender person\u201d as one who is \u201cintersex\u201d with a mixture of male and female genital features or a eunuch assigned the male gender at birth but undergoes castration or a trans person whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
\nThe Rules to the Act further clarify that a transgender person will have to approach the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for a change of name or gender on identity documents, as per their self-perceived identity. And NADRA will only alter their gender from Female to the category \u201cX\u201d or Male to the category \u201cX\u201d.
\n\u201cX\u201d symbolises the third sex in Pakistan, a classification specially created for the trans community on the orders of the Supreme Court in 2009.
\nThe law or the Rules do not allow men to change their gender to female or vice versa on their CNICs, passports or other travel documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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