October 28, 2025
By Asad Mumtaz Rid
KARACHI
Karachi’s transgender community held the Hijra Festival in the city for the third consecutive year, and celebrated it under the theme “From Environment to Identity and from Struggle to Freedom” at Burns Garden.
The festival, full of colour, dance, theatre performances and a display of resistance against insensitivity, was held at the historic Burns Garden, where transgenders collected, flanked by civil society representatives, and human rights activists not only from Karachi but from various other cities of Sindh as well and the rest of the country. They participated in the festival in large numbers.
The main theme of this year’s festival, “From Environmental Crisis to Identity and Freedom Struggle” aimed to highlight the message of not only gender identity but also social justice and environmental awareness.
During the event, the trans community presented rich speeches, music and dance. On this occasion, the leaders of the transgender community made speeches too.
“Whether the government is provincial or federal, we have been completely ignored. We are not part of any policy, the state should consider us as human beings and recognize our identity.”
Renowned transgender leader based in Karachi, Bindiya Rana said, “Times are changing, rulers will also have to change their attitude. Transgender people are moving towards their destination, the day is not far when they will be represented in the National Assembly and Senate.”
Meanwhile, civil society representative Dr Asghar Dashti said that the biggest problem of transgender people in the Pakistani state is the society’s lack of acceptance of their identity, this is the central point of their struggle to recognize them.
At the festival, transgender artists demonstrated their art through cultural dances, performances on classical songs.
The participants described this festival as a symbol of the identity, resistance and social inclusion of the transgender community. At the end of the ceremony, the state and government were demanded to ensure the representation of transgender people in the policy made regarding transgender people and to accept transgender people with their identity and give them their human and fundamental rights.