A riveting new documentary offers viewers a peek into the private lives of members from Pakistan’s quiet but thriving gay community.
Poshida: Hidden LGBT Pakistan follows a range of LGBT individuals as they struggle to survive in a country where gay sex is punishable with up to life in prison and violence and discrimination against them is an everyday occurrence.
The film is currently making its rounds on the indy film festival circuit and is being praised for exposing “taboo” issues of sexuality and gender in Asia and the Middle East.
Check out trailer below:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHiLw_FFGxo
TampaBayTed
Doesn’t the first guy realize he can possibly be identified by all the stuff he’s wearing?
David Quirk
gay or drag?
jason smeds
If these men are dressing up as women, I don’t consider that to be homosexual. I consider it to be men who want to look like women in order to appear heterosexual when they have a relationship with a man.
JB
This trailer doesn’t really indicate the movie is about Pakistan’s “gay scene.” It seems more like a movie about discrimination against Pakistan’s transgender community, which is a very different and much more serious issue. Please. queerty…retitle this article so that it represents the subject matter more accurately.
Kangol
Pretty intriguing stuff.
Aren’t there openly transgender people on Pakistani TV, though, and there’s some acceptance of them, outside of the extremist anti-gay religious circles.
I’m curious to see if this film will explore cis-gender gay and bi women and women, and how they’re treated in Pakistani society, especially non-elite gay people.
I may be wrong, but isn’t Pakistan an Islamic Republic? How does Islam woven into the fabric of government shape the laws around LGBTIQ issues? I hope the film delves into some of this.
judysdad
Are there no…you know…just “regular gay men” there? That hardly represents what I would call your typical gay scene.
jwtraveler
@TampaBayTed: “He” is a woman.
Queerty does seem to have trouble distinguishing gay, transgender, drag queen, etc. To make it easy, why not just say LGBT? You can throw in QIJKLMNOP too if you want to be sure not to exclude or offend anyone.
ingyaom
Pakistani female impersonators? I’d be interested in a film about Pakistani homosexuals.
Avery Alvarez
I don’t know.
This very much reminds me of a story on a Russian gay club in this small town near Sochi during the Winter Olympics.
It, too, was supposed to show us that gay life is thriving in Russia, only the story wasn’t about gay life. It was about a club that once was gay, now is straight, and has drag performers there to entertain the straight crowd. It’s the same with this story.
Not quite the same as “a thriving gay scene”.
Clark35
@judysdad: Of course there are; but they’re probably closeted.