In the very first episode of Burqah and Bikini focused on trans rights, Koko sits down with Dr. Mehrub Moiz Awan — a renowned transgender activist, educator, and healer — to explore what it really means to exist as a trans person in Pakistan today.

This is an unfiltered conversation about identity, sexuality, survival, and the crushing weight of class on human rights.

In Pakistan, trans people live with remarkable resilience and ingenuity, navigating a society that insists on a rigid gender binary. Within this binary system, identity becomes both a site of resistance and reinvention. Class plays a defining role — not just in who gets access to healthcare or housing, but in how sexuality itself is policed and pathologized. Yet amid these constraints, trans communities have cultivated powerful, alternative ways of living and loving. Polyamory, often stigmatized by mainstream society, emerges not as deviance but as an intentional and communal structure — a bold form of care, intimacy, and survival. In the absence of institutional support like sex education or accessible healthcare, many trans individuals are pushed into sex work — not as victims, but as economic agents negotiating their survival. When they assert their right to live in urban or “respectable” areas, they often face backlash — not because they don’t belong, but because their existence challenges deeply held social norms. Still, trans communities continue to heal, organize, and build spaces of care that the state fails to offer. Their story is not just one of struggle — it is also one of brilliance, collective strength, and reimagined futures.

From family rejection to small victories of community-led success, Dr. Mehrub also shares deeply personal reflections on allyship, success stories from their work, and why the LGBTQ+ community itself is not immune to internal biases.

This episode is a raw and honest look at trans life in a deeply unequal society.