Bangladesh opens mosque for transgender hijra community
Al Jazeera
The South Asian nation has, since 2013, officially allowed members of the hijra community to identify as a third gender.
Members of Bangladesh’s transgender hijra community, who were disallowed from attending other prayer services, have been welcomed at a new mosque in the Muslim-majority nation with the promise of worship without discrimination.
The humble structure, a single-room shed with walls and a tin roof, is a new community hub for the minority, who have enjoyed greater legal and political recognition in recent years but still suffer from entrenched prejudice.
The mosque near Mymensingh, north of the capital Dhaka, on the banks of the Brahmaputra river, was built on land donated by the government after the city’s hijra community was expelled from an established congregation.
“I never dreamt I could pray at a mosque again in my lifetime,” said Sonia, 42, who as a child loved to recite the Quran and studied at an Islamic seminary.
But when she came out as hijra, as transgender people in South Asia are commonly known, she was blocked from praying in a mosque.
