Jiya – Pakistani transgender who found a niche in tailoring
KARACHI: As a Pakistani transgender woman, Jiya measures customers at her tailoring shop in a brand new Karachi market. Her eyes gleam with the prospect of a busy Ramadan season and her ambitions to expand.
Already, Jiya, 35, goes by a single name like many trans. People in Pakistan have broken ground by opening a public shop. They make clothes for women and transgender women.
Other trans people running tailoring businesses have tended to do so out of their homes, wary of ostracism in a country with many.
Many landlords were reluctant to give a shop to a transgender woman. Jiya told Reuters at The Stitch Shop in the southern port city. She finally secured one in a new market, which she opened with two other trans women in March. In time for the start of Ramadan in mid-April.
The Islamic holy fasting month is traditionally a busy period for tailors as people buy new clothes to mark the Eid al-Fitr festival that ends Ramadan.
For Jiya, who studied at an all-boys school and learned tailoring with her fellow transgender women, opening her shop marks the start of her ambition.
“We want to expand this business. We want a boutique with Eastern and Western designs, all types of dresses,” she said.
Many of her customers said they preferred a transgender woman to make their clothes—a change from most other tailoring shops run by men.
“I felt comfortable while she took my measurements,” customer Farzana Zahid said.
Pakistan’s parliament recognized the third gender in 2018. That gives such individuals fundamental rights, such as the ability to vote. To choose their gender on official documents.
A 2017 census recorded about 10,000 transgender people, although trans rights groups say the number could be well over 300,000 in the country of 220 million.
