The Federal Shariat Court has declared sections 2 and 3 of The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018, as repugnant to Islamic injunctions. Consequently, these sections are deemed void and hold no legal effect. The Court has ruled that individuals cannot change their gender identity based on personal choice, as Islam does not permit altering the identity a person is born with.
The Court has also determined that the use of the term ‘transgender’ in reference to self-perceived identity is contrary to Islamic injunctions. The following excerpt from the judgment, at Paragraph 96, summarizes the Court’s decision.
“…For these reasons stated hereinabove, we declare Section 2(f) containing definition of “gender identity”, Section 2(n)(iii), Section 3 and Section 7 of the impugned Act, titled, “The Transgender Persons (Protection
of Rights) Act, 2018” as against the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) and will cease to have any legal effect immediately. Hence, the Shariat Petitions challenging the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018 are accepted in view of above terms. Consequently, the provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, 2020 relating to the above mentioned Sections of
the impugned Act, which have been declared as against the injunctions of Islam, shall also cease to have legal effect. However, the pending Shariat Misc. Application having become infructuous is hereby disposed of. Similarly, the
captioned S.P. No.02/I/2022 (Abdur Rehman, Advocate v. NADRA & another), S.P. No.03/I/2022 (Hammad Hussain v. Federation of Pakistan & another) and S.P. No.18/I/2022 (Muhammad Younas Qureshi, etc. v. NADRA & another) challenging Regulation 13(1) of the National Database and Registration Authority (Application for National Identity Card) Regulation, 2002 are hereby disposed of being infructuous as the impugned Regulation 13(1) has been deleted by NADRA during the proceedings of these petitions through the
National Database and Registration Authority (Application for National
Identity Card) (Amendment) Regulations, 2022.”
