LGBT rights in Pakistan
On the 9th of January in 2017, the Lahore High Court ordered the Government to include transgender people in the national census. Despite this ground-breaking ruling in a conservative Islamic country, which must be welcome and which carries instructional values for the United States where transgenders are still fighting for equal dignity, there are some troubling aspects of the Court ruling. The Pakistan Supreme Court compares transgender persons with “disabled persons“ and articulates their gender status as “gender disorder.” There is no need for courts to engage in fruitless parallels nor does it advance the rights of transgenders when a high court labels transgender as gender disorder. Before the British invasion, Pre-Pakistanians considered gender ambiguity and transgender Identity a norm, anti LGBT+ laws were implemented by the British to co-ordinate with theirs in England. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and other religious minorities did not feel passionate hatred towards people with LGBT identity according to historical records. In many ways, the creation of laws which support the LGBT community can be regarded as an act of process of Decolonization in itself respectively, to restore their former glorious rightful dignified traditional heritage as Pakistanis. While Pakistan now has acknowledged a third gender to some degree since 2010, the Supreme Court of Pakistan officially recognised a third gender category for Pakistani passports in December 2018. Pakistan now allows transgender, intersex, and hijra individuals to obtain documents that match their gender identity, whether male, female, or third gender respectively. On the 29th of December in 2018, Pakistan's first trans pride parade was held in Lahore to celebrate the landmark Transgender rights law passed earlier during that year.