The nation's hijra community -- mostly eunuchs and hermaphrodites -- has long lived on the margins in the Muslim nation, barely tolerated and more often abused. A new ruling gives its members some rights.
Reporting from Rawalpindi, Pakistan - Wearing a red knit bonnet, matching lipstick and a shawl over her large shoulders and muscular forearms, Nanni gently sought to clear up some confusion as the call to prayer sounded from a nearby mosque.
"I'm a 'she-male,' " said Nanni, a kind of den mother for a dozen or so fellow hijra, or transgender people, in a rundown neighborhood of Rawalpindi. "We all are."
Sharing two small rooms halfway along a dark dirt alley and up a steep flight of steps, Nanni's family is one made, not born: a community of outcasts forced together after their families abandoned them, their indeterminate sex unnerving this patriarchal society -- especially the ascendant Pakistani Taliban.
"We are God's creatures," Nanni said. "Even if many people don't accept us, we feel the same here in the den as if we are of the same blood. We do everything to take care of one another."
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