Transgender Rights
The transgender community in Pakistan has long faced social exclusion, economic marginalization, and limited access to education and employment. As a result, most transgender individuals remain deprived of opportunities that enable dignified living, self-reliance, and social acceptance.
At the heart of this challenge lies a crucial truth: meaningful inclusion begins with education. When transgender persons are given access to learning, they gain more than literacy – they gain voice, visibility, and participation in society. Education opens pathways to employment, civic engagement, and empowerment, allowing individuals to move from vulnerability to contribution. Without educational inclusion, every other reform remains incomplete.
A landmark initiative in this direction has been the TRANSEDUCATION Project of the School Education Department, South Punjab, at Multan in 2021. Dr Ehtasham Anwar, Principal Adviser at the Nexus, who was heading the department then, was the one who conceived and then implemented the project along with a team of dedicated officers. First of its kind in Pakistan, the project created an enabling educational space in a public school specifically designed to welcome transgender students, offering literacy, skills training, and psychosocial support. As part of the project, second school of the series was opened at Bahawalpur in March 2022 and another in Dera Ghazi Khan in August 2022, hence covering all three divisions of South Punjab. The project stands as a powerful reminder that with commitment and compassion, social change is possible. Its impact has gone far beyond classrooms, helping reshape community perceptions and providing a dignified platform for transgender inclusion. Not only school education, the Education Department of South Punjab also took a lead in breaking the barrier of higher education for the transgenders and got the first student admitted in PHD programme in Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan in 2022.
Such pioneering efforts deserve to be scaled up. Federal and provincial governments should adopt and replicate similar models across the country – integrating transgender persons into mainstream education and vocational systems, not as a token gesture, but as a sustained national priority.
At the Nexus, we recognize that equality is achieved not only through legal protections but through education that empowers. It may be mentioned here that when forceful expulsion of transgenders was reported from various districts of KP, we raised the issue in national media promptly and effectively, and pleaded that education, and not expulsion, was the solution. We are committed to taking this campaign forward – advocating for inclusive policies, supporting learning opportunities, and building awareness so that every individual, regardless of his or her gender, can learn, grow, and contribute with dignity.
