As a child, I was overly afraid of the famous Mumtaz Begum residing at the Karachi zoological garden. Every trip to the zoo entailed visiting the iconic fox woman, where I was reluctantly carried in the arms of an elder relative to view the orchestrated freak of nature. In retrospect, that trepidation arrived from my inability to classify the hybrid creature as neither a man nor a woman, a human or a feline. This voyeuristic installation owes its popularity to similar bemusement garnered from most visitors.

I now also realise how this quasi-creep show contributed to our society’s perceptions of transgender people. It perpetuated beliefs that they are freaks - creatures to spectate and consume for our amusement. This view still prevails amongst the majority of the population despite the significant improvements in their legal rights, representation, and inclusion. Across the globe, many people continually consider kinks, fetishes, sexualities, and queerness as anomalies, dismissing any form of a non-conventional exhibition and sexual proclivity or ‘bends’ as aberrant behaviour except only when expressed under the guise of performance for their consumption, much like the Mumtaz Begum.