Sexual and Gender Liberation in Pakistan: An Inside or Outside Issue?
by Amanullah De Sondy
LGBT Muslims in the parade at Pride in London 2016. A woman is holding a sign supporting the victims of the Orlando nightclub shootings, while a man holds a similar sign with a humourous “make Biryani, not bombs” slogan. An anti-Brexit sign and anti-Boris Johnson sign can be seen in the background. Photo by Katy Blackwood, from Wikimedia Commons.
Many Muslims blame issues surrounding sexuality on outsiders. It is not uncommon to hear some Muslims pit an Islam vs. the West binary when it comes to models of sexuality and gender roles. Yet complicated historical, geopolitical, and colonial roots underlie this claim of simplicity. This includes various lenses that make clear why this happens, including decolonizing the way sexuality is complicated in the history and legacy of geopolitics. Another lens is language. The types of words we use for human sexuality in English are often incomprehensible in places where English is not part of the culture and land. We must also appreciate that being ‘out, loud and proud’ has recently become a part of many English speaking, western nations as an emblem of liberal democracy. There is also a movement amongst some LGBTQ activists and nation states to ‘come out.’ In many Muslim settings, from the family home to what is seen on TV, sex is often not discussed or visible. Yet, as we see in Pakistan, there are actually multiple modes of imagining sexuality and sexual identity—many of which defy these simplistic oppositions.
Jasbir Puar’s ‘homonationalism’ argument is helpful to understand the dynamic: she explains that, in the US in particular, liberal sensibilities have infused LGBTQ acceptance with nationalist and imperialist ideals. This liberal openness to sexuality in all its rainbow colors is often used to highlight the distinctiveness of Muslim oppression of sexuality.
The history of this Pakistan vs. the West divide was set in motion by one of the founding fathers of Pakistan, Maulana Mawdudi (1903–1979). Mawdudi argued for the strict gender roles of men as breadwinners and women as homemakers. The young, free, and single were deemed dangerous. He offered rigid identity markers to Muslimness, and he set in motion this clear idea that Americans were sexually immoral. This continues to be effective in Pakistani society, and this case highlights its strength.
LGBTQ identities are understood as western. But Pakistan also has its own history of gender and sexuality, and it is not confined to cis, straight men and women. Today, many of the terms, such as Khwaja Sira for transgender people, are accepted. These are identity labels with a long history rooted in and given prominence in the Mughal Empire between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Khwaja Sira derives from Urdu and Farsi and was used for those individuals who we might identify as trans, castrated or gender nonconforming.
This history is not always on display, however; sometimes US-based models of sexuality appear in Pakistan. In 2011, religious conservatives condemned the US Embassy in Islamabad for hosting a Pride Event. The group commented that this was an “assault on Pakistan’s Islamic culture” and that a “holy war,” Jihad, was needed against the US.
In this clip we see Qasim Iqbal, an openly gay Muslim living with HIV, explain the complexity of being LGBTQ in Pakistan.
In this clip we see Trans Pride being celebrated in Lahore in Pakistan in 2021.
Issues of sexual and gender liberation found a collective voice at International Women’s Day. Pakistan’s Womens’ March (Aurut March) highlights a shift to understanding intersections of inequalities. It has gained momentum every year with several cities in the country now hosting a march. It now is a time for vibrant placards to be displayed with quirky statements such as Ghar ka Kaam, Sab ka Kaam (“Housework is everyone’s work”) and Mera Jism Meri Marzi (“My body, my choice”).
Maulana Fazl ur Rehman, the leader of the religious right-wing political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), asked law enforcement bodies to take action to stop the marches. “If they want to bring awareness to the issues that are faced today in society, if they are associated with rights for women granted to them in Islam and the constitution we have absolutely no problem with that. What occurred last year was against the norms of culture and society. So much so that I cannot even bring myself to speak of them,” he told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview.
In recent times, documentaries in English have investigated the lives of LGBTQ Pakistanis.
In this BBC documentary, Mawaan Rizwaan tells the audience that he was born and raised in England to Pakistani parents. When he told his parents that he was gay, they did not take it well. He then set on a voyage to Pakistan to find out what it is in their home country that makes them uncomfortable with LGBTQ individuals. Documentaries like these are interesting from a US or western perspective, but they are seen as promoting an outside agenda within Pakistan.
Pakistani society continues to have heated internal debates on sexuality. Many lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are wary of raising their voices in Pakistan, but transgender Pakistanis are often heard speaking in public. In 2022, the movie Joyland in Urdu/Punjabi language was released. The story centers on a middle-class Punjabi family.
It highlights themes of patriarchy, repressed sexuality, religion, masculinity, and transgender people. The movie was initially banned by the government of Pakistan but was later released. The censor board said they received a complaint from a senator from the Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic Party), Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, who said that the movie was “against Pakistani values” and that “glamorising transgenders in Pakistan, as well as their love affairs, is a direct attack on our beliefs.” The movie has received international acclaim and was nominated under the international category at the Oscars.
Pakistan is a dynamic country with vibrant individuals telling their stories. Many of them stand up to strict and rigid forms of gender and sexuality. The roots of these tensions are myriad and will continue to raise the question if these are insider or outsider issues. Many who reject a western approach to living gender and sexuality advocate for something more homegrown or indigenous in Pakistan, but is this realistically possible? It is important to note that English is one of the official languages of Pakistan, and every day speech mixes various languages in Pakistani society. Pakistan is also made up of four provinces, Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan, and each province holds a distinct culture, too. The colonial past, the complicated way in which Pakistani identity is evolving since the state’s creation in 1947, and transcultural influences of many different ideas leaves one unable to separate the inside from the outside. This tension will continue, a spectrum of political to linguistic disagreements, but what is key in all of this is that individuals who identify as Pakistani, be they inside Pakistan or abroad in the UK or the US, are highlighting the diversity of gendered and sexual subjectivity that adds to the colors of Islam.
Amanullah De Sondy is Head of the Study of Religions Department at University College Cork in Ireland and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam. Aman has taught Islamic Studies at Ithaca College and University of Miami in the US and is an affiliate of the University of Glasgow’s Theology and Religious Studies department in Scotland. Amongst several articles and chapters, he is the author of the Crisis of Islamic Masculinities (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014) and Judaism, Christianity and Islam: An Introduction to Monotheism with Michelle A. Gonzalez and William S. Green (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). Aman has been broadcasting “thought for the day” with BBC Radio Scotland for over fifteen years, is a regular contributor to the News Panel on Ireland’s RTE 1’s ‘Today’ TV show, and is passionate about the public understanding of religion through themes of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and pluralism. Aman tweets @desondy.