Gender rights.

IT goes to the credit of gender rights leader Bindiya Rana that Pakistan is counted among the 20-odd states to have given legal recognition to the 'third sex' - non-binary people. They were counted in Pakistan's 2017 census and are entitled to ID cards. Conservative Pakistan can now be regarded as enlightened in the matter of gender legalities - but not in terms of transgender people's acceptance and inclusiveness in society.

The last census says there are 10,000 transgender persons in Pakistan. But Nayab Ali, a gender rights leader, disputes this figure. She calculates that the real strength of the transgender population is about 300,000.

To learn more, I met Bindiya Rana, president of the Gender Interactive Alliance which she founded in 2002. She has steered the GIA through thick and thin to make it the biggest and most effective organisation for gender rights in Pakistan. Bindiya continues her struggle even though she's 70-plus, saying that she still has a long way to go to raise the status of transgender people in Pakistan.

She is not alone. Hundreds of similar groups have followed her lead. Bindiya is a master planner. Once she realised that advocacy and education were the need of the hour to push the rights-based approach, she set out to focus on designing a strategy. 'I joined WAF to observe and learn from them. And I learnt how to create a mechanism to fight for our rights,' she says. In the process, she also became a member of the HRCP to strengthen her flanks.

Transgender persons have yet to be accepted by society.

To give credibility to the GIA, Bindiya facilitated medical care, education and HIV-screening for GIA workers. She also devised a system of mobilising her members in case of an emergency such as rape or violence against a transgender person. They assemble within minutes and act collectively as a pressure group to ensure that the police take prompt action.

To improve the legal status of the transgender community Bindiya negotiated shrewdly with the government. She set the ball rolling by filing a petition in the Supreme Court demanding constitutional entitlements for her people. The court responded positively. Nadra was directed to issue ID cards to transgender persons with their gender initially marked as 'X'. Subsequently, three sub-categories were added.

In 2017 came wards for transgender people in hospitals. Finally, there was a landmark event: the passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018...