Original subtitles

My name is Mawaan. I'm 24 years old.

I was born in Pakistan and I grew up in Essex and earlier this year,

I told my parents that I'm gay.

And they weren't too happy about it.

MUSIC: Thrift Shop by Macklemore

I mean, I don't know why they were shocked.

I've spent the last five years mincing around on YouTube.

Leave a comment in the section below

or leave a video response if you think you're a bad man.

All the signs were there, but to a Pakistani parent,

it was the worst news ever.

I want to know what, in our culture, has led them to be like that

and why they don't agree with being gay.

So, what I really want to do is go back to Pakistan

and see what life is like there, being gay.

I want to know if there's a gay scene. Do they party?

Do they all hang out together? Is it top secret or can people be open?

I want to know if there's cruising grounds,

I want to know how dangerous it is.

I'm really curious to see what my life would have been like

had I stayed in Pakistan when I was a kid.

It's an exciting but scary prospect because I'm trying to, I guess,

lift the lid on something that my parents would never talk to me about

and I've been told to totally suppress and hide.

This is Karachi, one of the world's most dangerous cities.

It's notorious for terror attacks, kidnapping and organised crime.

The last time I was here was about eight years ago.

For me, it's two worlds that have never collided before, you know.

Being Pakistani and being gay

are not two things that go together in my head,

so I'm a bit, I'm a bit nervous.

First, I'm going downtown to remind me of the sights and smells

of the country I was born in and to get a new look.

I need to take off my skinny jeans, basically,

cos I look really out of place.

Not very connected to the everyday Pakistani man.

Man.

- Can you see yourself wearing those? - Yeah!

Yeah, yeah, this is definitely my colour.

Are you meant to bargain here?

Thank you. They're 200 rupees. It's a bit out of my budget.

£1.60 - that's a lot.

Karachi is Pakistan's largest city. 23 million people live here.

It's a place where, whatever you want, you can get a bargain.

CHICKENS SQUAWK

It's 200 rupees for a chicken. That's the same as the slippers.

HE RECITES HALAL SLAUGHTER CHANT

I don't want to see my food being killed.

MUSIC: Komeigi Beat by Darthreider

Oh, I need to get some spices. Look at that!

'Looking around, I'm getting the feeling

'Pakistan may just be a little gay.'

Whoa, look at them! Rainbow chicks! Look at that!

That would go down really well at a gay bar, wouldn't it?

It's just like Soho.

Rainbow chicks? Men in pink hats? Holding hands in public?

It all seems pretty gay to me.

But really, just how gay is Pakistan?

When Pakistanis were asked in 2013

whether homosexuality was acceptable, only 2% said yes.

MUSIC: Komeigi Beat by Darthreider

I've only just arrived

and already I've been invited to my first ever gay party in Pakistan.

It's been organised by gay activists Kami and Sid.

I'm a bit nervous now. I'm going to...

I might feel really out of place, you know.

I just wonder if it'll be anything like Soho.

- Let's go. - All right, let's go.

MUSIC: Dola Re Dola by Kamaicha and Rawanhatta

I'm Mawaan.

MUSIC: Dola Re Dola by Kamaicha and Rawanhatta

They don't... They haven't been drinking.

This is just their first hour of the party.

It's very Bollywood. It's very like...

Big shapes. The bigger, the better is the motto on the dance floor.

Hi.

- Nice to meet you. I'm Mawaan. You're the Sid. - Yes.

Oh, brilliant. Nice to meet you, man.

I wore a shirt. I never wear a shirt. I thought I'd be smart to be relaxed.

- I have... - Ha-ha, I just realised what that is!

Brilliant! That is a buttocks on your... Yeah, brilliant.

How many people know about something like this?

I guess it's not very public.

- So, that's Kami? - That's Kami. Kami!

'Sid and Kami have been together for seven years.

'Kami is a transgender woman.

'Their parties are well-known on the local gay scene.'

Despite the risk, people were willing to talk to me.

Do your family know you're gay?

When you go to a party, what do you tell them?

Do you ever feel in danger?

Talking to the people at the party,

it was clear there was a real sense of fear.

But still, they were determined to have their voices heard

and to show me the way they live their lives.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It's the day after the party

and Sid and Kami have invited me over to their place.

Hey! How are you doing, man?

- I'm good. - Good to see you.

- Hello, Kami, how are you? - Hello, how are you?

Good to see you again.

It was a great party, guys, really good,

really fun.

'Even though last night's party passed off without a hitch,

'that's not always how they turn out.'

When you realised they had guns, were you scared?

- No, why should I? - Because guns are scary!

Kami and Sid are openly campaigning for gay rights.

That's pretty rare in Pakistan.

Now they are preparing to go even further to show how they feel.

- Right... And he's going to marry you? - Yeah.

- So you're going to have a big, gay Muslim wedding? - Yeah.

'Sid and Kami are determined to return to Pakistan

'to live as an openly gay married couple.'

So, you want to get married but you want to stay in Pakistan?

So you could, potentially,

- be the first gay couple to get married in Pakistan. - Yeah.

- Right, bye, guys. - Bye-bye. - Bye-bye.

They're lovely, loving, creative people.

But at the same time, there's a sense of, you know,

"We're not going to take any shit from anyone",

and if they have to get aggressive, they will,

and they will do what they need to do to survive.

I never imagined a Muslim imam anywhere in the world

would be willing to carry out a gay wedding.

So what about the local imams? How do they feel about us gays?

I'm on my way to go and meet an imam

and so I thought I'd go and buy a traditional Pakistani kurta

cos I want to pay my respects. I'm a bit anxious, to be honest,

cos I've never really spoken to a religious leader

about what it means to be gay. I've never really had the urge to.

But I'm really looking forward to hearing his point of view.

- What do you think he might say? - Um, I get the feeling

that he's not going to be a massive fan of the gays.

'Maulana Hakeem Akbar Dars is one of Pakistan's leading Islamic scholars.

'He's even got his own TV show.'

I'm really nervous now.

Salaam alaikum.

'This guy is well-respected in the community

'and people come to him from across the country for advice.'

But I don't think I'm a patient. It's not an illness.

I'm a perfectly healthy man and you and the rest of society

keep referring to me as a patient. That's quite degrading for me.

Or leave the country of origin? OK.

So, which out of those three options do you think I should do?

Which is the best option for me?

- Allah hafiz. - Allah hafiz.

I don't really know what to say.

I feel, I feel quite sad, in a way,

because it makes me think, if I was living in this country

and I was handed over to someone like him,

I would have no say in how I live my life whatsoever.

I can't wait to ungay myself at the clinic. That should be interesting.

MUSIC: Sutrix by Talvin Singh

Having the imam tell me that my life is in danger was a reality check.

But I feel lucky knowing that I can hop on a plane

and run back to London.

But for most of Pakistan's gay community, leaving isn't an option.

Back at Sid and Kami's house,

I'm about to meet their flatmate, Shahzadi,

who's a transgender woman, like Kami, and has agreed to talk to me.

After she was kicked out of home,

Kami and Sid offered her a place to stay.

- Hello. - Hello. How are you, Sid?

Good to see you, man.

- Good to see you again. - Is Shahzadi in? - Yes, she is in.

'Shahzadi sometimes works as a prostitute

'to get enough cash to live.'

Good to see you.

Thank you very much.

'Since being beaten up,

'Shahzadi finds it difficult to leave the house on her own.

'Today, she's got a doctor's appointment,

'so she's asked her boyfriend, Amir, to take her.'

'Amir met Shahzadi on Facebook.

'They've been together for six months.'

Almost every transgender woman in Pakistan takes female hormones.

They reduce your body hair, increase breast size

and shrink your testicles.

But Shahzadi thinks that the hormones she's been taking aren't working.

They've left her depressed and her hair is falling out.

For transgender women in Pakistan,

the removal of the male sexual organs

is the final stage of becoming a woman.

It's commonly referred to here as castration.

Shahzadi's life here is very tough.

She's got to deal with the problems of transitioning to a woman

and, at the same time,

she faces the daily threat of physical violence and sexual assault.

But is there any legal protection

to help transgender and gay people in Pakistan?

Maliha Zia is a human rights lawyer

who has worked on many cases for the LGBT community.

- Hi. - Hi. - I'm Mawaan. - Maliha Zia, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Maliha.

'I know that homosexuality is illegal in Pakistan,

'but I want to see it in black and white.'

Section 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code states,

"Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse

"against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal

"shall be punished with imprisonment for a term

"which shall not be less than two years to life imprisonment.

"Unnatural offences consists of penetration

"of the penis into the anus."

So, this very categorically targets gay communities.

It's actually an Anglo-Saxon law. It predates Pakistan.

It was made in the colonial times,

which then carried on when Pakistan adopted the Pakistan Penal Code.

There have been incidents of murders of homosexuals,

there have been instances of ragging them, of torture, etc, etc.

How would someone like a transgender sex worker...

get justice for some of the abuse they've faced or something like rape?

I've met with some people who've been through a lot of sexual abuse

and they've sort of just accepted it.

It feels like the justice isn't there for them.

That is probably definitely the case, sadly as I must say.

While we have a section on rape... Section 376 talks about rape

but it talks about only heterosexual rape,

where it talks about man on a woman or a girl.

I think what shocked me the most

was that there's not anything in the law

that says a man raping another man is illegal.

I feel like...

I feel like, back in England, at least I feel supported legally.

There's some basic rights that are there

that enable me to live a safe life

and not feel like I have to be in hiding,

whereas here, the law could very much be used against me.

Despite being illegal,

convictions for homosexuality in Pakistan are rare.

The government and police seem to turn a blind eye,

as long as it's all kept behind closed doors.

But Kami and Sid seem determined to bring gay rights out into the open.

Kami and her friends have invited me

to go to shopping for a wedding dress in downtown Karachi.

I thought we were going to meet in a shopping mall

but it looks like we're going to go shopping out and about in the market,

which will be interesting.

I'm not too sure how people are going to react to Kami in public

and I feel slightly on edge about it.

- Hello. - Hey. - How are you? Good to see you.

- Hello, Kami. - How are you? - How are you? Good to see you again.

- And are we going to be in public, outdoors? - Yes, yes, yes. - OK.

MUSIC: Dancing Drums by Ananda Shankar

What colour do you want? Red?

- And you want to be traditional? - Yes. It should be traditional.

- I know. I feel really watched right now. - Yes.

But they've just stopped. They're not even subtle.

MUSIC: Ina Mina Dika by Asha Bhosle

OK, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

- OK, thank you. - You're welcome.

'And outside the shop,

'Kami and her friends are beginning to attract even more attention.'

Thank you so much.

THEY TALK IN URDU

CALL TO PRAYER

CALL TO PRAYER

Look at the people. They're all still standing there, watching.

I was feeling anxious.

I wanted to stop him but Kami was like, "Bring it on.

"I know how to deal with this." And I was like, "Yeah, can we go?"

I just wanted to get out of there. That was really uncomfortable.

It could have kicked off, I reckon, if it had carried on.

I want to go back to zone 2, London, and crawl up in a little ball.

I'm done with Pakistan.

Despite what I've just seen,

the sight of a transgender woman on the streets here

is more common that you might think.

They are known as hijras

and they've been part of the culture for centuries.

Some people think there as many as a million living in Pakistan.

Later that night, across the other side of town,

Shahzadi's taken me inside the hidden world of transgender women.

She's come to visit her friends.

In Pakistan and India, hijras are often rejected by their families

and live on the margins of society.

The hijra community is run by gurus. Shahzadi's guru is Zeni.

A guru is, basically, a mentor,

someone who can help newer members of the hijra community

with any problems they may face -

everything from housing to boyfriends.

Like many transgender women,

Shahzadi has been taking female hormones to transition to a woman.

'Now she's thinking about taking it to the next stage

'and having the operation.'

THEY SPEAK IN URDU

- It's interesting. - Yeah, really interesting.

It feels like, behind that closed door,

there's a real sense of community and identity

and an abundance of talent and ambition.

It's just, when they go into the outside world,

I feel like that's when they feel threatened.

- Hello. - Hello.

With their marriage only months away,

Kami and Sid have come to see Shazia Mahommed.

She's a marriage counsellor who's sympathetic to the gay community.

What are the kinds of things that you imagine will come up

once the two of you make it official?

KAMI LAUGHS

The reason I said that, I wasn't joking.

I said it in a joking way

- cos the first thing you mentioned was violence. - Yes.

Your fear is real, like your voice...

It's in your voice, it's in your body movements.

There's a very real fear that there might be a violent backlash.

- Thank you so much. - No, thank you.

When Kami mentioned the word "violence",

when he mentioned a threat to his safety,

I know that that's a very real threat.

So safety is a very, very real concern,

a VERY real concern.

You, obviously, meet a lot of gay couples.

Is there a pattern with gay individuals and couples?

Yeah, shame, debilitating shame,

because they're constantly given the message, from a very young age,

that there's something wrong with them, constantly.

And there's a conflict between wanting to be oneself

and being told that the way you are is not OK, it's not acceptable.

If I am like this, is there something wrong with me?

Am I going against God's wishes?

It's just pervasive

and it's a very, very difficult process for some people.

So, Shazia mentioned that safety was a concern.

Is this something you think about

and you're worried about after marriage?

By getting married, Kami and Sid are saying that there is no going back,

their homosexuality isn't curable.

Bye-bye.

It's a permanent expression of themselves and their sexuality

and that they're here to stay.

As my first week in Pakistan comes to an end,

I've seen a society which, at its worst,

rapes and threatens violence to gays

and, at its best, either turns a blind eye or offers up cures.

Before leaving Karachi,

I want to take up the Mullah on his offer to cure my gayness.

I'm very curious about what, exactly, the cure is.

Salaam alaikum.

- OK, thank you... - Thank you. - ..for your time. - Thank you.

So, we've just got to collect the medicine from the pharmacy.

Salaam alaikum.

It smells like...cumin and Coco Pops.

PHONE RINGS

What is this stuff?

He never said. He didn't really tell me what I'm taking.

£12! £12 for a bit of seasoning!

- And the humiliation. - Oh, yeah. The humiliation is priceless.

If you're having problems with your sexuality

and you're trying to deal with that psychology and that process,

this is who you go to for help.

That's... That's scary.

If you're in that situation, and you're made to believe

that you've done something wrong and there's something fundamentally...

..dirty and ill about you,

THAT can actually have long-lasting psychological effects on someone.

After making sure it's safe to take, I'm ready to be cured.

OK, here goes.

Oh, it tastes really bad!

It just makes me sad

to think of some of the people who might go to him and...

..and then the stuff, you know, the feelings they have to live with

of feeling like they're on the mend

from something that's completely natural.

The next tablet's in a few hours.

Here's to being straight.

Lahore, the capital of the Punjab and Pakistan's second-largest city.

It's also where I was born.

Lahore is the place my parents always described

as full of life and character.

I do feel a special connection to Lahore,

even though I don't know it at all.

I've not been back here for almost ten years.

MUSIC: Tera Jasia Pyara Koi Nahin by Usha Khanna

I've come to visit Naz Male Health Alliance,

one of the only organisations working openly

with the LGBT community in Pakistan.

They run a drop-in centre in the middle of town.

People come here to be tested for sexually transmitted infections.

- Oh, wow. So, these are hot spots where sex workers are. - Yes.

- Is there a lot of positive results? - Yes, of course. - Exactly.

'They also come here to socialise, escape the streets

'and forget their worries.'

Qasim Iqbal is the boss here.

What we're doing, what our staff does every day,

is risk their lives....

..when they come to the office. We can be killed.

Anybody could drive by and throw a bomb at our office.

And nobody would miss us. It might not even make it in the news.

Qasim grew up in the US.

But then, at the age of 35, his US citizenship was revoked

because he contracted AIDS.

How was it going from the US to then coming to Pakistan

and having to hide a lot of your identity?

You know, to be honest, right after coming to Pakistan...

..I was having a lot of gay sex and with the type of men

that I would not have been able to access in the US,

because these were, like, straight men.

And straight men in Pakistan, a lot of them - not all of them -

do have sex with other men.

They're not attracted to them but they have sex with them

because women, females, are not accessible easily.

Right...

MSM stands for Men Sleeping with Men.

Straight men sleeping with each other

is not something I ever thought happened in Pakistan.

At sunset, we head out to one of the city's sex hot spots

to hand out condoms specifically to MSMs.

MUSIC: Kashmir by Led Zeppelin

It's not long before we're surrounded

by dozens of men eager to get their hands on the freebies.

Most of them are uneducated labourers from the rural areas

who don't know anything about STIs and the dangers of unprotected sex.

The outreach team knows most of these guys.

Anyone they don't know is taken away for a chat to a nearby cafe.

Many of the labourers live in the nearby hotels.

They can't afford female prostitutes, so they sleep with each other.

I'm not prepared at all for what I'm about to see and hear -

the reality of the MSM world.

Oh, wow. 20p a night to stay here.

Everyone's freezing in the winter!

MUSIC: All Things To All Men by The Cinematic Orchestra

I find it really interesting how, just one wall away,

there's a religious shrine and people are praying

and then here, it's basically a sex den.

MUSIC: Dirge by Death In Vegas

It's so strange. I've never seen this side to Pakistan before.

All of a sudden, there's sex everywhere. It's just all around us.

What these guys are doing is frontline work, you know.

It feels like the state and the general nation

is ignoring that sex even exists, specially gay sex.

And these guys are talking to these people one on one,

you know, like three guys.

This is the Pakistan that was never...exposed to me, you know.

Most Pakistanis wouldn't think of MSM sex as gay sex.

To me, it definitely is.

It feels like this entire country is in denial about the whole issue.

I'm even beginning to think that gay sex is actually quite tolerated here.

But then I get a call from Qasim.

He wants to show me a video he's been sent from a rural part of Pakistan.

It shows a 15-year-old boy who's been caught with his gay lover.

So...this video was sent to my drop-in centre

and then it was sent to me from there.

This is the video.

MUSIC: Over by Portishead

'The video is too gruesome to show.

'The boy is being sodomised with sticks by an angry mob.

'He screams in pain.'

VIDEO SOUNDTRACK IN BACKGROUND

I don't think I can watch any more.

'The video ends with the group trying to throw him off a cliff.'

And there's little children watching.

'It's only the intervention of a bystander that saves his life.'

VIDEO SOUNDTRACK IN BACKGROUND

- So, you know what I mean? What do we do with this? - That's disgusting.

There's nothing we can do with this.

There is no way we can find out if this guy...

if this BOY - it looks like a young 15-year-old boy -

if he is still alive and I bet you the only option

he would have had, if he survived, was to run away from home.

And once you run away from home, at the age of 15,

you're living out on the streets, you're even more vulnerable.

You are living in this country where this stuff is happening

and you're still working in the field that you're working in.

Yeah, because there is nobody else who will.

What Qasim has shown me is truly shocking.

Thankfully, attacks like this are quite rare,

even in remote, rural communities.

Before I head home, I'm meeting up with Shahzadi.

Hello, Shahzadi. How are you? Good to see you.

'She's flown 1,000 miles from Karachi

'to see a doctor here at the drop-in centre.

'She's worried that the hormones she's been taking

'to help her sex change are having side effects.

'Even here, the doctor is worried

'about being seen treating LGBT patients,

'so he has asked not to be identified.'

Thank you so much.

I wish you the best.

- OK, have a safe journey. - I hope they love this.

MUSIC: Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin

# Babe

# Baby, baby I'm gonna leave you... #

After two weeks here,

I feel like I've got a much better idea how gay Pakistan really is.

# I said baby... #

Pakistan isn't this, you know, super rigid heterosexual place,

like my family and friends make out to be.

There's actually a lot going on

and, despite what my expectations were, I've actually found

that there is a really exciting underground LGBT movement.

There are a lot of people taking big, brave steps to fight for equality.

I think I really value that I'm really lucky

that I can live openly and freely

and not have to be scared for my life every day

which, sadly, isn't the case for a lot of the people that I've met.

DIAL TONE

Hello?

HE LAUGHS

# My girl, my girl

# Don't lie to me

# Tell me where did you sleep last night

# In the pines, in the pines

# Where the sun don't ever shine

# I would shiver the whole night through... #