Overview
What khwaja sira means.
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.
The respectful Pakistani umbrella for hijra and other third-gender people, with its own houses and history.
Khwaja sira in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Khwaja sira has precolonial roots: the word points to a role with status at Mughal-era courts in South Asia, where khwaja sara served as court eunuchs, administrators and guardians of royal households, and were often described with both masculine social standing and a distinctive gender presentation. Wikipedia's Hijra (South Asia) entry, which the Khawaja sira page redirects to, records the term as reclaimed in Pakistan partly for these precolonial associations, in contrast to derogatory Urdu terms that came to be used for the same or overlapping communities.
British colonial rule changed the community's legal and social position sharply. From the 1870s, colonial law criminalised eunuchs and related gender-variant communities across British India — scholarship on this period (including Jessica Hinchy's research on eunuchs, colonialism and modernity in North India) documents how the 'eunuch' was made into a criminal legal category and colonial officials sought to suppress the community. In Pakistan, this history fed into decades of marginalisation after independence, before a reversal in recognition: the Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that khwaja sira are entitled to equal access to state support as a third sex, followed by the 2018 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act allowing self-identified gender on official documents, though a 2023 Federal Shariat Court ruling has since put parts of that Act under legal challenge.
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
There is a guru whose word about your money is final, and she is not your blood.
You have two names, and the one on the CNIC is not the one anyone in the house calls you.
Your income moves with the wedding season, and you know which streets and which functions are your house's and which are not.
You have sat in an office for the third-gender mark on a document and been told the rules changed again since last year.
Someone shouts the street word from a bike, and an hour later someone else says khwaja sira with respect, and you know exactly which one was meant to hurt.
Pronouns
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.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1You 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.
- 2You 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.
- 3You 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.
- 4You are here for a story, a costume or a character. Read what khwaja siras have written and said. Take the reading. Leave the word.
Close by
Related identities
Hijra
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.
ReadThird gender
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.
Read
Transgender Female
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.
ReadAravani
Tamil Nadu's community, tied to its own god and festival. Similar shape from a distance, separate lineage and language up close.
ReadTwo-Spirit
Listed beside khwaja sira in every "third genders of the world" article, and unrelated to it in every way except being closed to outsiders.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
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.
The flag
No own page on lgbtqia.wiki; the Hijra page shows a khawaja sira flag 'created on or before 2021 by an unknown individual' (DeviantArt Pride-Flags) — designer unknown, no hex codes.
Sources
- Hijra (South Asia) — Wikipedia The Khawaja_sira URL redirects to this article. Terminology section: khawaja sira as the Pakistani term, preferred over derogatory Urdu words, reclaimed for its precolonial origins; guru–chela kinship; recognition as third sex in Pakistan in 2009. Fetched 2026-09-03.
- Transgender rights in Pakistan — Wikipedia Khawaja saras regarded as cultural descendants of Mughal-era court eunuchs; 2009 Supreme Court ruling on equal access to state support; 2018 Act and self-identification on documents; 2023 Federal Shariat Court ruling with the Act in force pending appeals. Fetched 2026-09-03.
- Power, perversion and panic: eunuchs, colonialism and modernity in North India — Jessica Hinchy (thesis) Fetched 2026-09-06. Documents 1870s British colonial criminalisation of eunuchs in North India, used for the precolonial-to-colonial context of khwaja sira.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.