Violence in plain sight |
Talking about transgender rights in Pakistan usually makes people shift in their seats. You can see it happen. Someone checks their phone. Another clears their throat. Someone else starts, "Yes, but..." and stops. That reaction alone should tell us something. We avoid this conversation because it forces us to look at things we've learned to ignore. And yet the violence keeps happening, loudly, repeatedly.
Since 2022, more than five dozen transgender people have been killed in Sindh. Many were shot from close range. Not caught in crossfire. Not victims of random robberies. In some cases, their bodies were found on roads outside Karachi, left there like a message. Bullet wounds still visible. Names forgotten within days.
When the same thing keeps happening to the same community, it stops feeling accidental. It feels targeted. It feels like someone has decided these lives are cheap.
But even death doesn't explain the full........