After growing up as a boy in Lahore, Alia feels finally comfortable in her own skin as a woman in Cologne. But she has also experienced acceptance in her old country while dealing with discrimination in her new one.
Image: DW/A.Islam
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Even before he entered school, Aliraza knew he was stuck in the wrong body. Playing and running around with other boys was not for him. He was interested instead in dolls, jewelry and make-up. At age five or six, he was able to put into words what was happening - and told them to his mother. She didn't take him seriously, thought it was just a phase many children go through. She let Aliraza do as he pleased. "She thought that I'd grow out of it - and at some point she would have a young man," Aliraza said.
Alia laughed as she recounted this. The thought was now so absurd for her. She had left Aliraza behind so long ago. She is thousands of miles away from her hometown, Lahore, studying environmental science in Cologne. She lives now openly as a woman - wearing make-up and shaving, walking with a feminine sway - though her body is technically still that of a man.
That should also soon change. "I'm already taking hormones," she said. "And I hope that I can have an operation in two years." Her eyes light up when she speaks about it. For Alia, to be a woman means at the same time to be free.
On stage but out of view
But it wasn't until last year that Alia found the courage to tell her mother that, after all, she really was a woman. "I was simply afraid to tell her," she recounts, "afraid that my mother would say 'you're no longer my child. I'm throwing you out.'" These fears were proven unfounded - her family accepted her - but Alia's experience is more of an exception than the rule.
Transgender people in Pakistan are often celebrated as singers and dancers at festivals, but elsewhere they are marginalized. "They are made outcasts by their government, by their society and even by their own families," said Saroop Ijaz, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch in Pakistan.
A dance during a transgender rally in KarachiImage: Getty Images/AFP/A. Hassan
Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that transgender be recognized as a third gender. Members of the country's transgender community - called hijra - was given the right to an inheritance, an education and healthcare as well. But this has hardly changed the reality for many. In many cases, matters have gotten worse. "Violent assaults of transgender people are happening more and more often," said Ijaz. "There are injuries and even deaths."
Life-threatening discrimination
Weeks ago, the murder of Alisha, a 23-year-old Pakistani activist for transgender rights, made international headlines, shining a tragic light on the day-to-day discrimination that transgender people face in the country.
She was shot in cold blood, reports Qamar Nasim, a human rights activist and, like Alisha, a member of the Trans-Action-Alliance. "She was shot at nine times. Alisha was then brought to one of the biggest hospitals in the region, but at first she was denied any professional help." The staff couldn't decide which doctor should treat her, whether she should be treated as a man or a woman, or which ward she should be taken to. She soon died of internal injuries.
"While Alisha laid there dying, people where standing around and making jokes," Ijaz added. "It shows just how deep this rot in Pakistan goes." Nasim counts that, between January 2015 and May 2016, 300 transgender people were attacked or raped in the Alisha's home province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 46 were killed, he added.
Dancing despite fear - Pakistan's cross-dressing men
By day, Waseem sells cell phone accessories. By night, he is a female party dancer. But being a cross-dresser in Pakistan is not without risks. AP Photographer Muhammed Muheisen captured the struggle in pictures.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Muhammed Muheisen
Dancer by night
When night falls in the city of Rawalpindi, Waseem starts to dance. The 27-year-old acts as a "hijra," the third gender. Estimates suggest thousands of them live in Pakistan. They are especially popular as dancers at weddings or baby showers because their prayers are deemed very effective. However, these are the only occasions they are truly accepted.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Muhammed Muheisen
Different in daylight
During the day, Waseem sells cell phone accessories in an alleyway shop. His colleagues or friends know next to nothing about his nightly life.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Muheisen
Turning into Rani, the dancer
For Waseem, leading this double life serves mainly as a way to achieve a better life: "Being a dancer helps me to earn much more money than working in a shop," he says. For true hijras, life is a constant fight. Those who can't work as dancers, in many cases drift off into prostitution. All of them - even Waseem - face harassment and abuse.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Muheisen
United in loneliness
Many orthodox believers hate these "creatures between men and women". Radical Islamists attack them in public. That's why the hijras shy away and live in a close-knit community. "Eyes follow me when I walk out of the apartment," says 43-year-old Bakhtawar. "Being with other dancers is like being with a family. When I am surrounded by them, I feel safe, respected and empowered."
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Muhammed Muheisen
Showing their true selves
Many hijras fled from these stares to the anonymity of a big city, keeping their true self from colleagues or family. However, Pakistani law is rather progressive in this regard: In 2011, a Supreme Court ruling officially recognized the third gender. Hijras can now tick it off in their passports, are allowed to vote, open a bank account and work legally - helping some get away from prostitution.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Muhammed Muheisen
Standing up for equality
For the first time, transgender people like Bindiya Rana (pictured on the right) ran for the country's parliament during elections held in 2013. Although she didn't get into parliament, she has kept fighting for equality and an end to discrimination. New laws have so far not succeeded in bringing any major change to the public mindset in the conservative Pakistani society.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Shakil Adil
Living a double life
Even today, only few transgenders are openly presenting their identity with such pride as Amjad. "The only thing that I can't do is conceive babies," the 44-year-old says.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Muhammed Muheisen
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Seeing the light
Alia was never physically attacked, though she has always dealt with prejudice and discrimination, even in Germany. People often stare at her. Children point to her on the street and whisper. "A drunk man once called me repulsive and told me that I should go back to India."
She believes the transgender community can only achieve its accepted place in society through cautious and fundamental change, in both Germany and Pakistan. "Children should become familiar with the topic in grade school. They should learn that there are also transgender people, and that we're people just like other men and women."
Some hopeful news came out of Pakistan this week, after 50 Islamic clerics declared in a fatwa that transgender people can rightfully marry under certain conditions. The legal opinion is not binding, but the activist Nasim views it nonetheless like a window being opened for the first time in a dark room. "We can see the light. We can breathe the air."
From Cologne to Colombia: A world of LGBTQ+ pride
Celebrations of LGBTQ+ pride are increasingly gaining visibility and acceptance across the word. But, in some places, people who are out and proud risk being thrown in jail or even killed.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Escobar Mora
Christopher Street Day in Cologne
In Germany, pride parades usually take place in major cities on weekends from June to August. Cologne held its 25th Christopher Street Day ceremonies - annually the biggest in Germany - on the first weekend of July. Berlin will celebrate on July 23, and Hamburg has scheduled a week of pride from July 30 to August 7.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Hitij
Stonewall was a riot
A police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on New York's Christopher Street, on June 28, 1969, is a major milestone for the queer liberation movement. Some of the biggest US pride parades are held on the last weekend in June to commemorate the riots that followed the raid. After a gunman killed 49 LGBTQ+ people at a bar in Orlando this June, mourners paid tribute at the Stonewall Inn.
Image: Getty Images/S. Platt
Dyke March
Lesbian activists have established their own event for more visibility: the Dyke March. The first major US Dyke March took place in Washington, DC, in 1993 and drew 20,000 women. Bisexual and transgender women also join the processions. Organizers of the annual Dyke March in New York stress on their website that the event is "a protest march, not a parade."
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMA/A. Katz
Police assault on Istanbul Pride
In 2016, the Istanbul administration prohibited any demonstrations during the city's annual pride observances. When protesters marched in a rally for transgender rights anyway, they were violently attacked by police. The officers used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the Trans Pride crowds. At the Istanbul Pride closing rally, police arrested several participants as well.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Turkel
Bike Pride
In Vietnam's major cities, cycling is one of the most common forms of transportation. That's why it makes sense that the first Viet Pride, in 2012, saw more than 200 participants cycling through the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam's capital. This year's celebrations will be held August 19-21. The events now draw close to 1,000 people.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Premiere in Johannesburg
The first pride parade on the African continent was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in October 1990. It was organized by anti-Apartheid activists. For the event's 20th anniversary party in 2010 (pictured), 18,000 people celebrated. Today, parade participants also protest against hate crimes such as the so-called corrective rapes of lesbians in townships.
Image: Johann Hattingh/AFP/Getty Images
Small steps in Uganda
Homosexuality is a punishable offense in Uganda - but activists still organized a pride rally in the capital, Kampala, in August 2012. Two years later, Uganda's Supreme Court annulled legislation allowing for life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality" and banning the "promotion of homosexuality."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Out and proud in Colombia
Colombia hosted its 2016 Orgullo (pride) celebrations on the first weekend in July. The country decriminalized homosexual activity in 1980. Today, same-sex couples can adopt children and enjoy the same pension and property rights as heterosexual couples.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Escobar Mora
Baltic pride
Bad weather can't stop members of the LGBTQ+ community in Riga from celebrating. During the first pride parade in the Latvian capital, in 2005, protesters threw rotten eggs and bottles at the small crowd of 40 people who marched the streets. Today, Latvia takes turns with Lithuania and Estonia in hosting the annual Baltic Pride parade.
Image: Reuters
Century of sadness in Russia
The last Moscow Pride (pictured) was held in 2011. The next year, the municipal administration banned pride parades for 100 years. Russian officials have repeatedly attempted to repress LGBTQ+ people. In 2013, the country passed a law criminalizing the distribution of materials to minors in support of "nontraditional" sexual relationships, which has led to a surge of homophobic propaganda.
