Transgender Marriage Is Legal, According To Pakistani Religious Decree

The decree, though not legally binding, holds a significant amount of weight in the highly-religious nation.
From: NewNowNext

 A group of 50 clerics issued a religious decree (fatwa) this past weekend that would make transgender marriage legal in Pakistan.

The clerics, who belong to the influential Tanzeem Ittehad-i-Ummat body based in Lahore, issued a statement on Sunday in an attempt to define the scope of what marriage could look like for the nation’s trans community based on Islamic law.

Though the tone of the statement was positive, and points toward acceptance of trans marriages, the language was a bit confusing, with some news sources reporting that trans individuals would be permitted to marry whomever they wanted, while others reported that trans individuals would only be permitted to marry other trans folks.

Regardless of this confusion, the decree did explicitly denounce violence toward trans individuals, which still runs rampant in the country even after its Supreme Court declared equal rights for the Pakistani trans community in 2012.

According to local rights group Trans Action, 45 trans individuals have been killed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan in the last two years alone.

Unfortunately, the fatwa wasn’t entirely positive as it made clear that these same permissions and protections would not be extended to Pakistan’s intersex community, as it will only cover those individuals who have distinct male or female genitalia.

Given that religion and politics are so closely intertwined in Pakistan, the fatwa carries a significant amount of weight, though it’s technically not legally binding in any way. What it suggests, however, is that legally-enforceable protections could be put in place for Pakistan’s trans community in the future.

That this would spell the same for the country’s intersex or LGBT community seems highly unlikely, as these groups exist outside of the traditional binary, with marriage and sex for both communities still deemed illegal nationwide.