ISLAMABAD: In our country’s electoral rolls of 97.02 million voters, only 1,456 persons are listed as transgender persons.
Counted up till October 12, 2107 electoral rolls comprise of 54.59 million male and 42.42 million female voters.
Only 1,456 persons mentioned themselves as transgender persons in their CNICs, following which they registered themselves as voters in this special gender category, according to ECP officials.
Amidst contradictory claims by the community itself where some transgender organisations claim their numbers are present in hundreds of thousands, it is generally believed their population is much higher than what has been mentioned in electoral rolls.
300 members have been claimed from the federal capital city only by Nadeem Kashish, head of She-male Association for Fundamental Rights (SAFR) in Islamabad.
1000 members are transgender out of the total 55.82 million voters registered in the Punjab province, reveal updated electoral rolls.
Similarly, 50 members are transgender among the 3.7 million voters from Balochistan, 17 from the 2.1 million voters registered in Fata, while in Islamabad 3 persons in the voters’ list have been mentioned as transgender.
Pakistan’s transgender population according to the population census is 10,418.
It is believed that the figure mentioned in the electoral rolls is also much lower than this year’s population headcount in which enumerators counted transgender persons for the very first time separately.
The population census data shows that 74 per cent of the transgender population resides in urban areas as opposed to the overall majority dwelling in the rural parts of the country.
NADRA in 2012 started a separate sex column for transgender persons in CNIC data, after a 2009 decision accorded by the Supreme Court on welfare of the transgender community and recognizing them as a “third gender.”
Nadeem Kashish says that in CNIC, NADRA categorizes transgender persons in three segments – trans-woman, trans-male, and intersex. Most of those who claim to be transgender according to her, are actually male and have children. In reality there are only a few who are actually transgender.
ECP official claim they have included all transgender persons in their electoral roll as long as their sex was mentioned in their CNICs.
In regards to the matter at hand, they said that most of those counted as transgender persons in this year’s population census exercise had received their CNICs before 2012. Since no separate column or mechanism for including transgender persons existed before January 2012, they are mentioned in the male or female category in CNIC’s gender column.