Political Economy of Love: A Case Study of Male-Female Transgender Persons of Pakistan

Abstract

The existing body of literature on male-female transgender persons of Pakistan covers a range of themes, from socio-economic discrimination, ostracization, violence, and HIV/AIDS. The intent of conducting current research was to explore the lives of male-female transgender persons in a way that connects micro-narratives of their lives with the themes above. The goal was also to decipher and understand how they create agency for and among themselves despite being socio economically marginalized. To explore this, the current study was conducted, theoretically grounded within the larger paradigm of political economy, and funneled down to transactional sexual relationships. Transactional relationships are essentially economic-based relationships in which one party instrumentalizes, sex, sexual intimacy and staged romantic love- all the factors which lead to securing cash, kind and services from a man who plays a provider role. In the context of the current research, this man is called a girya and the person who uses sex, sexual intimacy and staged romance as instruments of securing finance, goods and services is called a khusra or a zenana. The current study is about their relationship, socio-economic transactions, socio-sexual settings, an instrumentality of love in this relationship and propensity, and the actuality of HIV/AIDS related at-risk behaviors between them. Methodologically, the study used a case study research design in which case was the materiality and commodification of love. For the current research, ethnographic research methods of rapport building, participant observation, and unstructured interviews were used. Data were analyzed using thematic and structural analyses as the approaches and framework and conversational analyses (respectively) as the tools. The data, for the purpose of current research, was collected from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Mansehra City, and Kot Radha Kishan. Among the study’s units of data collection were zenanas, khusras, giryas and social situations and events. The data elicited from these units, highlight instrumentality of emotions, sex-for-money exchanges for basic needs and for raising social status, and financial security accrued from being in a steady or a long-time relationship with a girya. The study shows that instrumentality of emotion is typified by feigned romances, commodified expressions of love, and sexualized bodies, which works as an effective economic arrangement for zenanas and khusras but also creates a space for them to negotiate, challenge, and question existing structures. The study explains conceptualizations of love as articulated by zenanas and khusras, their forms of socio-economic organization, the socio-sexual settings they are part of (dera, dance functions and saalgirah functions), and plausibility of locating a man within these spaces, and using love in tandem with sex for economic benefits. The research also highlights HIV/AIDS related at-risk behaviors between zenanas/khusras and their giryas. Findings also suggest that in some cases these relationships give power and agency to zenanas and khusras but this assertion does not hold for others. Such relationships if manufactured especially by gurus are extractive, violent, and toxic for the zenanas and khusras. The study ends by highlighting the areas in and along which future research can be conducted. Keywords: khusra, love, money, Pakistan, transactional sex, zenana