Online othering and epistememic violence against the Pakistani Khwajasara community: Jostling for digital interstitial space

Abstract

Although the 2018 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act granted legal recognition to the Khwajasara community in Pakistan, Pakistani society has yet to accept their gendered identity. This paper studies how digital culture in Pakistan condemns the Khawajasara community to a state of mutism and genderlessness through gendered and epistemic violence. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s notion of epistemic violence and expanding it through what we call epistememic violence – epistemic violence enacted through memes – the study examines how sexist humour becomes a dispositif for social erasure and digital exclusion. By deconstructing conveniently selected popular social media memes that undermine the Khwajasara gender, the research exposes how sexist and transphobic humour solidifies a rigid gender binary, suppressing the interstitial space. We argue that digital epistememes operate as ideological apparatuses, interpellating both the memer and the consumer into a shared fabric of gendered mockery. While exploring the satanic trinity – sexism, humour, and epistememic violence – we redefine digital mockery as a form of Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV), showing how the Khwajasara gender is simultaneously hyper-visible and epistemically muted in digital culture. We conclude that it is necessary to tackle digital othering through counter-narratives to solidify digital interstitial space and promote gender fluidity.