By Ziba Balkhi
Exiled from her own home, imprisoned, assaulted, and now a refugee in France, Sadaf has suffered for her identity as a transgender woman.
But despite the pain, it’s not an identity she felt she could change.
“Our gender is not in our hands. We were born like this. The fact that I was born a man and I have feminine feelings and habits in me, and I like to be a woman was not and is not my fault,” Sadaf says.
“If our gender was up to us, we would never want to do something that would be so humiliated and insulted by society and even under the ugly and bad behavior of our family.”
Sadaf’s story includes extreme experiences in Afghanistan, where she was born, and Pakistan, where she initially fled, over her gender.
She was forced to leave school, imprisoned at home by her family, threatened to be handed over to the Taliban, and sexually assaulted more than once in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Sadaf says she realized the truth about herself – “a woman who was born in the body of a man” – when she was 16.
“People think that we are infidels,” she says.
She has requested to be called Sadaf and does not want the name her family gave her mentioned in this report.
Relentless rejections in Afghanistan
Transgender or trans people have a gender identity that is not incongruent with the sexual characteristics they were born with. In many cases, these people can make changes to their body and appearance to reflect their identity.
While there are people who consider themselves transgender throughout Afghanistan, it has long been considered a taboo. The small number of people who identify as trans have faced serious abuse, violence, and discrimination from those close to them as well as from the community.
Sadaf continued her education until the 11th grade in a boys’ schools in northern Kunduz province, but as her gender identity and habits emerged, she was targeted and ridiculed by her classmates and teachers at school. So she finally quit her formal education.
“I left my school because of these people and my teachers. Our schoolteachers even told me to fix our habits and the way I talk,” she says.
But for Sadaf, the first place she experienced discrimination and humiliation – as it is for many in Afghanistan – was in her home from her family.
Sadaf says not only was she never supported, but her family considered her a source of shame and even imprisoned and beat her at home.
“Fix your behaviors and habits. You embarrassed us in front of the people,” she says her family would say to her. “You are a disgrace to us.”
When Kunduz province briefly fell to the Taliban in 2015, she made the decision to run from home and flee the province.
“When I was in Kunduz, everyone knew that I was trans. I was afraid that someone would hand me over to the Taliban. My family warned me several times that they would hand over me to the Taliban if I didn’t change my habits.”
Carving a new life in Kabul
After arriving in Kabul, she lived with several other people who were trans, gay or lesbian in the Kot-e-Sangi area of west Kabul.
But she struggled to find an income. So she and some friends turned to dancing at parties for a living, and others turned to prostitution.
“For some time when I lived in Kabul, I went to wedding parties or houses and danced, and in this way, I made my living expenses and income. I found many trans people became prostitutes out of necessity because no one else would employ them,” she says.
“No one spoke with us or cooperated with us except for us trans people who supported each other.”
While the Taliban was used as a threat against her, Sadaf says the government before the Taliban was in itself a bad experience because of the abuse, discrimination and neglect by authorities.
Sometimes those charged to protect them would themselves bash and rape them.
“When we were going to parties, the police of the [Afghan National Security Forces] used to harass us. If they caught us, they wouldn’t let us go – they would either tie us up or take our money or beat us or rape us. These are the stories of myself and my friends,” she says.
One of the first times Sadaf was raped was at the hands of ANSF police officers in Kabul. She was with a friend returning from a party where they had worked as dancers when they were spotted by police from PD Three by one of the checkpoints.
“Because we were wearing make-up, they asked us where we were going. They had a booth where they used to pass the time. They took me and my friend there and sexually assaulted us and took the money we had earned at the party,” she says.
“We could not go and complain anywhere because we were not considered members of the society at all.”
Fight for respect continues in Pakistan
A week after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, Sadaf fled to Pakistan illegally, fearing that she would be imprisoned, tortured or stoned to death by the Taliban.
“I spent almost a week under the shadow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was very scary. The Taliban used to go to people’s houses and search. The situation was very bad, and we had to go to Pakistan through illegal means. I was afraid of being tied up or whipped or stoned so I ran away,” she says.
But life in Pakistan was not easy.
To earn money, Sadaf again turned to dancing. And it wouldn’t be long before she was sexually assaulted again.
“In Pakistan, trans people also didn’t have any value and people harassed me. In early 2022, some unknown people kidnapped me. They took a nude video of me and sexually assaulted me. I endured a really difficult situation,” she says.
Sadaf attempted to bring those who raped her to justice. She had no legal residency in Pakistan and, according to Sadaf, the Pakistani police don’t register the complaints of illegal Afghan immigrants. So she lied about where she was from.
“For this reason, I had to say that I am from Waziristan, Pakistan. When I said that, they took my petition. They took a medical test from me and it confirmed that I had been sexually assaulted. But the people who raped me bribed the Pakistani authorities and saved themselves,” she says.
After this tragedy in her life, Sadaf joined several other Afghan transgenders living in Pakistan to try to protest the Pakistani government on their rights. In the meantime, she applied for asylum in France – which was accepted.
Flight to France
Being in France today is a great relief to Sadaf. She is looking forward to changing her identity to look more outwardly feminine.
Sadaf says she would like to have long hair, wear makeup, get married and have children just like other women. She sees hope again in her future and wants to fulfill her dreams in France, which she felt she could not achieve in Afghanistan.
But she is worried about those left behind, especially while Afghanistan is under the Taliban control.
“The people of Afghanistan think that trans people are sinful. They think trans people are infidels. My wish is that people understand that trans people are also human. Trans can also live. Trans people can also have a family. Because these people are also human beings – God has created us too,” Sadaf says.
“We are also servants of God and followers of Islam.”
