FILE PHOTO: In this picture taken on July 10, 2025, Bunty, a transwoman and dancer, applies makeup at her friend's house in Rawalpindi. No reliable data exists on the number of transgender people in Pakistan, where gender affirmation surgery was recently legalised. - AFP)
ISLAMABAD: In Pakistan, where gender affirmation surgery was recently legalised, Bunty is one of the few trans women who could afford to get it done safely.
Despite winning the right to medically transition in 2018, many transgender people in the Muslim-majority nation still turn to unqualified surgeons because of a lack of trained doctors, high costs and cultural taboos.
