Present Day Afghanistan
7-year-old Mehran stands next to her 11-year-old twin sisters outside their family home in Qala-e-Naw, Badghis Province, Afghanistan. Source: NY Post
A bacha posh is a little girl who lives and dresses like a little boy. It’s a common practice in Afghanistan for two reasons. First, a family’s status is reliant on male children, and, second, girls and women lead restricted lives. By dressing a daughter like a son, parents give their child the ability to move from place to place unaccompanied, more educational opportunities, and an all around freer childhood.
The typical bacha posh only remains crossdressed until puberty. At that point the young woman will begin growing her hair, dressing in feminine clothing, and eventually marry the man of her parents’ choosing, but it isn’t always that simple.
Zahra (a fifteen-year-old Afghan bacha posh) plans to remain a boy. “I see how women are treated here,” she says. “Why would I want to be one of them?” Zahra plans to continue to “pass” as a man in order to retain her rights and opportunities.
That’s what crossdressing often boils down to–wanting something you can’t have due to how the powerful define the limits of your gender. Whether it’s certain rights, educational opportunities, safety, self expression, or ideas far less tangible, crossdressing and crossdressers point out the flaws in male and female gender roles.
