khwaja sira
English edit
Etymology edit
From Urdu خواجہ سرا (xāja sarā), ultimately partly from Persian.
Emphasising the mismatch between their visible bodies (hazir) and the invisible soul (ruh), they presented the khwaja sira as a feminine soul that was stuck in a masculine body. In presenting this definition of their gender and seeking legitimacy for it, khwaja siras seek to define the distinctiveness of their soul. It is not just any feminine soul but one endowed with certain spiritual qualities.1
Noun edit
Khawaja sira (plural khwaja siras)
- A member of a traditional transfeminine third gender in Pakistan and India since Mughal times.
- 2014 December 18, Susan S Wadley, South Asia in the World: An Introduction: An Introduction, Routledge, →ISBN, pages 182–183:
- That the discussion kept focusing on the sexual behavior of khwaja siras agitated a number of transgender activists, who were uncomfortable that these issues were being discussed in the presence of people who were not khwaja siras. […] Beena's response demonstrates the tendency of khwaja sira activists to represent themselves and their communities in a socially acceptable manner as respectable and religious people. She emphasized the conservatism […]
- 2018 June 12, Lena Martinsson, Diana Mulinari, Dreaming Global Change, Doing Local Feminisms: Visions of Feminism. Global North/Global South Encounters, Conversations and Disagreements, Routledge, →ISBN:
- Funding that is targeting the Khwaja Sira community ought to go through Khwaja Sira organisations, she says, insisting on being more than a token for international NGOs that have little or no knowledge about the local conditions.
- 2018 December 6, Arzu Güler, Maryna Shevtsova, Denise Venturi, LGBTI Asylum Seekers and Refugees from a Legal and Political Perspective: Persecution, Asylum and Integration, Springer, →ISBN, page 52:
- The individual and shared identity of khwaja siras is pivotal to studying why and how they are persecuted. According to Khan (2014a), there is no universally agreed upon definition for a khwaja sira, and the fluid term has a distinct trajectory of use in Pakistan. Transgender Pakistanis may use the term hijra to refer to themselves, […]