This Ramzan, the faithful have many physical trials to face — from fasting long hours in searing heat, to demands of labour to feed one’s children who may not fast, or to even earn an Iftar or Sehri meal. But there is also the mental aspect of Ramzan that the government cannot and will not legislate for — keeping one’s base instincts under control, being kind to fellow human beings, and compassionate towards the non-humans. In the banal religiosity of our ruling elites and middle classes, base cruelty will stand in as a testament to one’s piety instead of the deeper, more humane ethos of Islam. The following quote therefore forms an appropriate backdrop to a plea I want to make for the attention of the faithful this Ramzan: “All I want is for people to meet others with a smile. Don’t hurt anyone. God has created everyone the way they are, whatever they are, one should love them for who they are [as God’s creation]. And I wish people would not tease me, say hurtful things. Some people just slap me on the face from nowhere, others hurl abuses at me, and some get drunk and try to molest me. These things really hurt me.” The quote is from a transgender (woman) khawajasara in Rawalpindi, who my research team interviewed as part of our ongoing research project on gender and violence in urban Pakistan, funded by International Development Research Center (IDRC). We surveyed about 2300 men and women across eleven poorer neighborhoods of Rawalpindi/Islamabad and Karachi. In the process, we particularly chose to also focus on transgender people to understand how their access to services, vulnerability profile and interactions with the state and society intersect with experiences of violence. Today transgender people face a terrible fate in Pakistan. People portray them as freaks, and some even believe that they change their appearance deliberately The numerical approach to who is deserving of attention is a profoundly modernist perversity. Numbers don’t matter. Inclusion matters, no matter how numerically miniscule a so called, minority. Either we function in a society where everyone has an equally legitimate claim to its protections and set of responsibilities towards it, or we are a grouping of individuals in perpetual competition with each other, where winners take all and losers learn to stay quiet. Of course, our vote is for the inclusive society. Among the Navaho Native Americans in the United States there were traditionally four recognised genders — males with a masculine soul, females with a feminine soul, males with a feminine soul, and females with a masculine soul. In precolonial times our society too had a different understanding of gender where transgender people were not a minority, freaks or an abomination, but quite ordinary part of the human landscape. They were deemed holy, whose blessings were sought after, and their wrath and displeasure feared. Today transgender people face a terrible fate in Pakistan. People say they are freaks and sinful, and some even say they do it by choice. Let’s look at that argument. They are invariably disowned by their families. Doors of a regular job are often closed to them, and when they do get a normal job, sexual, physical and psychological violence is visited upon them with impunity and in fact, to the general amusement of the public. The only kind of protection they have is through their gurus in the khusra community. And there too the protection comes at a cost of sexual and financial exploitation. They are run as prostitutes, dancers and beggars to pay for their keep, by their gurus. Why in the name of everything that is holy — they ask — would they choose to be transgender? We talked to some transgender people who now earn a living by begging but who had jobs in a previous life. They said that they prefer begging to regular jobs, because at least it allows them to be open about who they are. As one respondent said: “[I will accept a job] If someone were to accept me in the shape of khawajasara [I cannot pretend to be not that]. I can sit on a counter and manage cash, make bills, do basic accounting,” Their transgender identity is as important to them as the masculinity of the men, or the femininity of women, is to them. Can we please God while being indifferent to the happiness of His creation? Do the transgender deserve a thought, and more importantly emancipatory action as we contemplate God, humanity and our relationship to both? The writer is a Reader in Politics and Environment at the Department of Geography, King’s College, London