Pakistan’s first-ever transgender doctor, Sarah Gill, gets a house job at Karachi’s Jinnah Postgraduate Medical College (JPMC).
She met the JPMC’s Executive Director Prof Dr. Shahid Rasool on Tuesday to get her house job letter. PPP leader, Bilawal Bhutto, had asked the JPMC to make immediate arrangements for her house job. Last month, Sara Gill Khan had become the first transgender doctor in Pakistan. She passed her professional exam of MBBS from Jinnah Medical and Dental College in Karachi.
Sara informed that she was enrolled in the university as a male. Her class fellows knew about her identity but that was never discussed. Sara said that her parents insisted that she should pose as a male.
She said, “They insisted that I pose as a boy throughout my life despite knowing that I am not. They said that I am selfish and did not consider the respect that the family would lose after I declare myself transgender. Every transgender has to face the same situation.”
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Read more: Sara Gill Khan becomes first transgender doctor in Pakistan
Gill asserted that in an interview before completion of her MBBS degree, “My family warned me that if I declare myself as a transgender, they will stop paying for my studies. Now I will have to arrange for my next year’s fee on my own.”
According to some reports, she even attempted suicide several times. “A normal person can never understand our state of mind. It is like a soul trapped in a wrong body,” she said. Social media is once again celebrating her appointment at JPMC.
Pakistan on way to fulfilling SDG goals?
Such steps are necessary by the government and civil society to include the marginalized communities in the mainstream. Being a signatory to United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, it is incumbent upon Pakistan to develop and harness the infrastructure to support and uplift such people who are being marginalized due to several societal taboos.
By including the transgender communities in the mainstream, Pakistan can fulfill a number of SDGs that include SDG 4-quality education, SDG 5- gender inequality, SDG 8- decent work and economic growth, and SDG 10- reduce inequalities.
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By ensuring their quality education, and equal work opportunities, the government, and civil society can facilitate them in living a quality life. This will in turn make them empowered enough to be free from the risk of living a compromised life in poverty. Moreover, the inclusion of the members of the transgender communities will pave the way for other community members to brave the challenges and pursue their dreams. Their increased participation in society will evolve and redefine the mindsets of how to deal with them.
Hence, measures should be made to make their participation in society a norm for their ‘acceptance’.