What happened: The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) introduced a bill in the Senate on Monday to modify the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018. The bill proposes to create a medical board that would recommend whether a person’s gender should be changed rather than them requesting reassignment based on their personal identification. Details: The law, in its current state, reads: “ A person recognized as transgender … shall have [the] right to get himself or herself registered as per self-perceived gender identity with all government departments including, but not limited to, Nadra .”
Senator Mushtaq Ahmad’s amendment bill opposes this clause and proposes for the creation of a gender reassignment board to advise Nadra on whether a person’s gender should be changed. It suggests that with the agreement of the Prime Minister and Provincial Chief Ministers, such boards be formed at the district level with each board consisting of a professor doctor, a psychologist, a male general surgeon, a female general surgeon, and a chief medical officer. More: The bill claims that the current law violates the dignity of Muslim women and that treating gender identity as a personal matter is opposed to Islamic teachings. Senator Ahmad, who introduced the bill in the upper chamber, argued that under current law, a person might register as a man or a woman based on their “personal ideas” rather than their biology. He claimed that this type of law was incompatible with the Holy Quran and Sunnah.