Trans mayor elected for a small city in majority-Muslim Bangladesh

ABOVE: Nazrul Islam Ritu. Photo via Facebook.

RILOCHANPUR, Kaliganj upazila, Jhenaidah, Bangladesh| A 45-year-old transgender independent candidate beat a political rival late last month becoming the first elected first trans mayor in this majority-Muslim, South-Central Asian nation.

Nazrul Islam Ritu garnered 9,569 votes against the Awami League-backed candidate, Nazrul Islam Sana who received 4,517 votes. Speaking with a reporter from Al Jazeera, Ritu said her victory showed growing acceptance of the “Hijra” community, an umbrella term for those born male but do not refer to themselves as either a man or woman.

“The victory means they really love me and they have embraced me as their own,” she added. “I will dedicate my life to public service.”

This nation of around 164.7 million people has a trans population estimated to be approximately 1.5 million or less, a significant majority who are forced to live by begging or working in the sex trade, often faced daily with threats of violence and anti-trans discrimination.

Transgender men are often times more at risk than their female counterparts.

In October 2017 Human Rights Watch interviewed six transgender men living in different parts of Bangladesh. All of them spoke of bullying at school, barriers to employment, difficulty accessing health care, as well as harassment and verbal abuse in both public and private spaces.

On top of these difficulties, they feared for their safety amid a climate of impunity for attacks on minorities by religious extremists and feared that, if they were targeted, authorities would deny that they were targeted because of their gender identity rather than come forcefully to their defense.

Interviewees also highlighted the difficulties that arise because their gender identity does not match the gender listed on diplomas, passports, or other legal documents, including their ability to get jobs and to travel.

There has been some progress as the country’s growing tolerance for the rights of sexual minorities has seen a raft of new laws under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

In 2013, transgender people were officially identified as a separate gender and, in 2018, they were allowed to use “third gender” when registering to vote. In November of 2020, Bangladesh’s first religious school for transgender people opened.

According to the BBC, more than 150 students will study Islamic and vocational subjects free of charge at the privately-funded seminary, or ‘madrassa’, in the country’s capital city of Dhaka.

This past June, the country’s government declared a tax rebate for companies hiring transgender people to boost the government’s social inclusion efforts, Al Jazeera reported.

“I propose to enact special tax incentives with a view to providing employment and ensuring rise in living standards and social and economic integration of the members of the third gender,” Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal announced as he unveiled the national budget for the 2021-22 financial year.

Speaking to reporters after her election, Mayor Ritu said that one of her main goals of is to “eradicate corruption and uproot the drug menace” in her town of 40,000 people.

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