RIGHT DELAYED IS A RIGHT DENIED: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF PAKISTAN’S TRANSGENDER ACT 2018

Abstract

Human rights are meant for all the humans irrespective of their origin, sex, religion, race or orientation. Transgender persons have always been neglected in different jurisdictions of the world and Pakistan is not an exception to it. For the past few decades there had been demands to recognize and protect the rights of such persons in order to lessen their sufferings and bring them into main stream national life through education and trainings. In the year 2018 Government of Pakistan passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which in itself happens to be a great step towards empowerment and protection of different fundamental rights of transgender persons, yet there has been hue and cry from different religious and moderate segments of the society, according to whom, this Act has opened backdoor for homosexuality and is a result of international agenda of LGBT campaign. The open ended right of self perceived gender identity given under the Act has been the major concern for different scholars and legal practitioners. This research article tries to look into the Islamic perspective as well as, discusses the vires of the said Act in order to highlight the issues in the Act and also lists down few recommendations at the end.