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Pakistan allows transsexuals to have own gender category (video)

So then what are you saying? That Pakistan isn't progressive? What's the point of bringing up Benazir Bhutto as some sort of evidence that Pakistan has been wrongfully stereotyped as being backwards and non-progressive? Here do us both a favor, explain what you meant by using the example of a female president in a rabidly homophobic Muslim country.

I meant exactly what I said, nothing more, nothing less. The only way to be confused by my words would be to try and add extra meaning to them.
 
I meant exactly what I said, nothing more, nothing less. The only way to be confused by my words would be to try and add extra meaning to them.

So then you had no point in bringing up Benazir Bhutto? Good to know. You should be honest with your words next time. If you have no intended purpose other than to bring up Benazir Bhutto as some sort of proof that Pakistan has been wrongfully labeled as unprogressive then you should have said so. Or are we to believe that the election of a female president is something that is 'progressive' in a country where women are still regularly killed in honor killings by their husbands? No, the election of Benazir Bhutto is related to her heritage. Not the realities of gender relations in Pakistan.
 
Redress is right. Though it is not right to call this "progressive" in the typical sense of the word (it is certainly seems progressive for the transgendered community in Pakistan, if not the homosexual community), but it is certainly a case of a foreign country defying American stereotypes. In many Asian cultures recognition of a third gender is an ancient distinction, going back to antiquity, so transgendered people may not be regarded in the same way as they are in western societies where the third gender has been viewed as much more strictly binary.
 
So then you had no point in bringing up Benazir Bhutto? Good to know. You should be honest with your words next time. If you have no intended purpose other than to bring up Benazir Bhutto as some sort of proof that Pakistan has been wrongfully labeled as unprogressive then you should have said so. Or are we to believe that the election of a female president is something that is 'progressive' in a country where women are still regularly killed in honor killings by their husbands? No, the election of Benazir Bhutto is related to her heritage. Not the realities of gender relations in Pakistan.

Again you try and make my words into something they are not. Keep building those straw men, it's fun to watch.
 
Redress is right. Though it is not right to call this "progressive" in the typical sense of the word (it is certainly seems progressive for the transgendered community in Pakistan, if not the homosexual community), but it is certainly a case of a foreign country defying American stereotypes. In many Asian cultures recognition of a third gender is an ancient distinction, going back to antiquity, so transgendered people may not be regarded in the same way as they are in western societies where the third gender has been viewed as much more strictly binary.

I'm not sure they're defying any stereotypes yet. In the case of Pakistan I think it would be far better to see what is done with this list, should anybody be willing to put themselves on it.
 
I'm not sure they're defying any stereotypes yet. In the case of Pakistan I think it would be far better to see what is done with this list, should anybody be willing to put themselves on it.

Is it really a "list" or is it, as the article makes it sound, a type of classification? I think this is simply a matter of a new category of gender, and additional rights for such people.
 
Is it really a "list" or is it, as the article makes it sound, a type of classification? I think this is simply a matter of a new category of gender, and additional rights for such people.

If it's a classification listed on legal documents there will be a list somewhere of those classifying themselves that way...
 
I feel very uneasy about this. Homosexuality and sodomy are punishable by prison sentences in Pakistan. It seems that the country is not allowing transgendered people to choose their gender of choice, but rather register as a transgendered person. I am just skeptical about it.
 
If it's a classification listed on legal documents there will be a list somewhere of those classifying themselves that way...

Here, I found another article:
Pakistani transgenders get expanded rights - World Watch - CBS News

From all accounts this is a good thing for the transgendered community in Pakistan, it is an expansion of their rights. Interpreting it as a "list" that is detrimental to them is the sort of false stereotype held by Americans that Redress was talking about earlier.
 
I feel very uneasy about this. Homosexuality and sodomy are punishable by prison sentences in Pakistan. It seems that the country is not allowing transgendered people to choose their gender of choice, but rather register as a transgendered person. I am just skeptical about it.

Yeah, it makes no sense to me, why wouldn't they just label them as male, or female, instead of singling them out.
 
I feel very uneasy about this. Homosexuality and sodomy are punishable by prison sentences in Pakistan. It seems that the country is not allowing transgendered people to choose their gender of choice, but rather register as a transgendered person. I am just skeptical about it.

You're framing this incorrectly. This isn't about homosexuality, it is about transgendered people. The two groups may be linked in the USA but not necessarily so in Pakistan.
 
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Because it's a third gender.

Most trans people as far as I know don't want to be labeled as a "third" gender though, they want to be labeled as their desired gender.
 
You mean Al-Qaeda? A group that holds support in Pakistan and who Pakistan has failed to do anything about? Or was it Lashkar-e-Jhangvi another group that has support in Pakistan? Which 'idiots' killed her?

Then why so few votes for Islamists in Pakistan?. I think those in Pakistan can be forgiven for being under zealous when pulling Anglo-American chestnuts out of the fire, given the recent history of support for military rule.
 
True, all my knowledge comes with a western perspective, but you can't blame me for being skeptical. Also it leaves out FTM, which is underestimated as part of the trans community IMO.

Indeed, the very basis of this thread may be a cultural misunderstanding. The third gender is not typically what Americans mean when they talk about transgendered people, which is typically understood as a person of one genetic sex of a gender-identity associated with the opposite sex. However, broadly speaking, gender is a continuum and the middle of the gender falls into a general category of "transgendered."

The sort of transgender we are speaking of here is generally genetically male and identifies as a third gender, neither male nor female. This categorization of a third gender has precedent is antiquity as diverse as the ancient Greeks and Persians to the Native Americans. We see evidence of it in the "neuter" gender in the Romance languages.
 
You mean Al-Qaeda? A group that holds support in Pakistan and who Pakistan has failed to do anything about? Or was it Lashkar-e-Jhangvi another group that has support in Pakistan? Which 'idiots' killed her?

Over 50% of the electorate voted her in and you have deduced that the MAJORITY in Pakistan wanted her killed....how?
 
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