Dragging the line
By Batool Zehra
June 13, 2010
http://tribune.com.pk/story/20296/dragging-the-line/Straddling the roles of mainstream spokesperson and esoteric community leader, Bindiya Rana is both pragmatic and schmaltzy, aiming to persuade you with a mixture of ingratiating patriotism and vague humanism. It's not hard to understand her draw as a spokesperson for the rights of the Khwaja Siras — transgender people — of Pakistan. Whether at an event organised by the Karachi government or on a television talk show, the President of the Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA) has a confident presence in the media that makes the aspirations of her community seem tantalisingly attainable, if only by glossing over the dividing factors that have kept it at the margins for so long.
The Gender Interactive Alliance is not the only welfare organisation working for the transgender people but it is the one which has made the most of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's interest in the community.
