Gender Identity Deprived of Social Recognition and Approval: Dilemma of Third Gender Population

Abstract

A person’s genuinely sensed internal distinct experience of gender that may be contradicted or congruent with his / her biological sex is referred to as gender identity. It includes self-conception of the build and structure of the body as well as how they perceive their psychosomatic being. Third gender people in Pakistan, along with other discriminatory and exclusionary practices, face social disapproval of their gender expression and are deprived of social recognition and approval. This research is designed to explore the gender revelation among third gender population that is considered variant by social setup and societal attitude towards their gender expression. The study tries to find out the pattern of gender identity status at the national level through the provision of CNIC and vote casting. The research was carried out in Karachi, where a large number of the third gender population comes to dwell from different areas of Pakistan as the city is the economic hub of the country. 170 respondents were selected for data collection. The nature of the study was mix research method comprising both qualitative and quantitative approaches and the instrument used for this study was an interview schedule. The data was collected by the researcher herself. The collected data were analyzed statistically by using SPSS. Inferential analysis and descriptive methods were applied to the collected data.