Thread by @Bubbleskhanum

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐡𝐰𝐚𝐣𝐚 𝐒𝐢𝐫𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲?

There are various misconceptions about what the Khwaja Sira Community is and what people does it include. These misconceptions have furthered the confusion, propaganda and hate against trans people.

Firstly, the word Khwajasira (خواجہ سرا) does not define any gender identity, it is confusingly put next to other genders like man/woman/Khwajasira, when in reality, Khwaja Sira is the name of a social, cultural and spiritual, indigenous community

running on well above more than a thousand years old system , members of which are also called Khwaja Siras, but that is not their gender identity, genders of Khwaja Siras can vary, from trans men to trans women or effeminate men,

whose gender more fittingly would be Mukhannas /Khunsa (Arabic) , Moorat (Faarsi Kalaam).

The Khwaja Sira Community is diverse and houses a number of gender diverse people including transgender people, this idea of it only consisting of intersex people is a myth, a myth that became necessary to protect the community from the violence of the cishet people

& izzat daar muaashra (society with victorian morals) that the British colonizers gave birth to by imposing the Criminal Tribes Act (1871)
which criminalized the existence of Hijra persons and resulted in a genocidal wave of violence, remnants of which we are seeing to date.

You can read about it on the link below.

google.com/amp/s/blog.ipl…

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐫𝐮 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦

So how does one join the Khwaja Sira Community? In most cases , trans people are abandoned by their families and turn to the community for support, they start meeting the community members, befriend them.

among these friendships there may form a bond with one of the community elders who is eligible to become a Guru, and with mutual understanding and consent, the younger one will become a Chela and find their Guru. Guru is like a parent figure and Chela is like a child.

The reason for sharing all of this is that there is a certain level of gatekeeping from inside the community, not just anyone can one day wake up and say they are trans and then join the Khwaja Sira community,

the community itself doesn't take Cis men or Cis women in because it is specifically for gender diverse people, so even if as you claim a man could claim to be trans and become a community member

(they would need a Guru first to even go to nadra for ID card changing procedures so there's so many steps before you even get to nadra, while you make it sound like a piece of cake)

that's just not possible, we know our kind, we can tell a Moorat even from a distance when we see one, and no it doesn't involve invasive procedures like looking in their pants, the new members to be spend time with the community, and who they are shows in their very existence,

and we happen to have a better eye to spot our kind and we have been doing this since centuries now.

So if you really claim to care about the indigenous Khwaja Sira community (which is very few intersex people and mostly transgender people) , you would learn from this and educate yourself and change your behavior and apologize for your harmful and damaging words to the community

otherwise you are just transphobic, hijraphobic and playing the 'I respect intersex people' card won't work anymore.

#transgenderrightsact2018 #transgenderactbill #transrightsarehumanrights #transgenderrightsarehumanrights #transcommunity

@sanakhusri @zakraaaaa @EhmadEmmar @ShahzadiRai @surkhina @TMItalks @AradhiyaKhan4 @arzaanick