Phenomenological Study of Life Challenges Faced by Transgender: A Case of Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Transgender people in Pakistan especially in Punjab experience wide socio-cultural, economic and institutional discrimination to play a complete role in the society. Although transgenders have a historical presence in terms of culture, they are still marginalized and face systematic discrimination in their education, employment, health care, and in their social inclusion. Research Objectives of this study are: To examine the social, economic and psychological issues that transgender people in Punjab, Pakistan face. To explore the coping ways and processes that transgender people use in coping with stigma and marginalization. To explore the role of cultural norms, institutions and societal beliefs in the daily lives of transgender people. To deliver information that can be used to make policies, interventions, and programs that can promote better social inclusion and well-being of transgender communities in Punjab. The chapter describes the research design used to explore the issue of the life difficulties of transgender people in Punjab, particularly in such cities as Sargodha, Multan and Lahore. The research design is a quantitative research design as a structured questionnaire is used to obtain empirical data about 235 respondents. The quantitative methods are known to be effective in measuring variables that are systematic and replicable, and this is appropriate when it comes to evaluating social, economic, and psychological issues that transgender communities are exposed to. The research follows the purposive sampling method that is usually applicable in identifying certain groups of people with distinctive features. A structured questionnaire that was designed during the current study was used to gather data based on five sections, namely, demographic information, social challenges, economic challenges, psychological/emotional challenges, and coping mechanisms. Everything was placed within a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly Agree-Strongly Disagree) in order to measure the experiences and perception of the respondents. The questionnaire was modified based on the established instruments that are valid and were previously used in other studies on the transgender populations around the world. Data analysis was performed in SPSS in order to provide the descriptive and inferential statistics. Demographic characteristics and distribution of social, economic and psychological problems were summarized using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations.