Khwaja sira
Pakistan's own word for its third-gender community — respectful, precolonial, and belonging to the people who carry it.
- One of twenty-two Cultural identities
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- 4 min read
A word that belongs to a people. This identity is held within a specific culture. The page is here to understand it, not to adopt it.
A shorter entry: the essentials, written to the same standard. The fuller guides are on the main identities.
What it is
Khwaja sira — also written khawaja sira or khwaja sara — is the word Pakistan's third-gender community uses for itself, and the word to use for them. Wikipedia records it as the Pakistani counterpart to hijra, reclaimed by the community given its precolonial origins and its more accepted standing in Pakistani society, and used in place of Urdu terms that are considered derogatory. Wikipedia's account of transgender rights in Pakistan adds that most khawaja saras are regarded as cultural descendants of the court eunuchs of the Mughal era.
It is a community, not a feeling. Like hijra across the border it runs on gurus and chelas — teachers and disciples, in the kinship system this site's Hijra page describes in full — with houses, ritual work at weddings and births, and its own internal categories. That page calls the two cousins, not the same structure: the terms inside khwaja sira do not map cleanly onto Indian hijra houses. A person becomes khwaja sira by being taken in, not by recognising a description.
It is closed. The word belongs to Pakistani communities and to families from there. Nobody outside adopts it, however well the neither-man-nor-woman part seems to fit. The law has moved around it: Wikipedia records a 2009 Supreme Court ruling on equal access to state support, the 2018 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act allowing self-identification as male, female, both or neither on documents, and a 2023 Federal Shariat Court ruling against the self-perceived-gender sections, with the Act in force while appeals run. The community keeps having to fight for what the word already says.
Pronouns
In Urdu the feminine forms are usual, and in English most khwaja siras are "she". Some say flatly that they are neither man nor woman and will correct you either way. Inside the house the language is maternal — guru, amma. Use what the person in front of you uses. Do not translate her into "eunuch": that is a word for a surgery, not for a person.
Does this sound like you?
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Twenty questions, about four minutes, nothing leaves your phone. It suggests. You decide.
Nearby identities
The distinction is the useful part.
The wider South Asian word, ordinary within the community and a slur from outside. Khwaja sira is Pakistan's respectful equivalent, with its own houses and categories — cousins, this site says, not the same structure.
Compare Khwaja sira and Hijra →The legal box: the X on a Pakistani document. The state made the category; the community existed long before it. Many people are both. The box is not the identity.
Compare Khwaja sira and Third gender →A woman assigned male at birth, who may transition medically, keep her job and family, and never have a guru. Many Pakistani trans women are not khwaja sira and say so. Some khwaja siras are trans women. The overlap is real and the conflation annoys both.
Compare Khwaja sira and Transgender Female →It might not be you if…
- You are not from these communities. The description may fit you exactly and the word is still not yours. What you are feeling has words that are open; start there.
- You are Pakistani, feminine, possibly trans, with a flat and a job and no guru. That is a trans woman's life, or a gender nonconforming man's, and it has its own words. Khwaja sira without a house is a word without its meaning.
- You are looking for a private label for a private feeling. This is a public role with a guru, a share of your earnings going upward, and a funeral already planned.
- You are here for a story, a costume or a character. Read what khwaja siras have written and said. Take the reading. Leave the word.
Questions people ask
Is khwaja sira the same as hijra?
Nearly, and not quite. Wikipedia lists khawaja sira as the term used in Pakistan for the same broad community, preferred because the Urdu street words are derogatory and this one has precolonial standing. This site's Hijra page adds that the Pakistani houses have their own internal categories that do not map cleanly onto Indian ones. Same family, different house.
Is khwaja sira the same as transgender?
Legally, Pakistan's 2018 Act groups the community under transgender persons and lets people self-identify on documents. Personally, many khwaja siras use both words; others say transgender is an NGO word for a medical process, and khwaja sira is a household and a lineage. Since the 2023 Federal Shariat Court ruling, parts of that law are under challenge. The word the community had before the law is still theirs.
Can I identify as khwaja sira if I'm not Pakistani?
No. It is not a self-description with criteria you can meet from outside. It is membership of specific houses under specific gurus, in a specific country, granted by people who have to accept you. If what caught you was "neither man nor woman", that has open words — non-binary, agender, third gender in its general sense. Use those.
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