Negotiating Alterity: Transgender Predation and the Construction of the Other in Shama Askari's Queen Zarqa

Abstract

This Study examines the portrayal of the tension between cisgender power and transgender survival in Shama Askari’s Queen Zarqa (2025), focusing on themes of harrasement, stereotyingand social exclusion of transgender individuals in Pakistan, especially in Pukhtoon society and Karachi. The study explores by using textual analysis of Catherine Belsey’s that transgender characters such as Queen Zarqa, Madhubala, Guru, Rani, and Samita in the text experience different forms of predation and marginalization within a Pakistani society shaped by rigid gender norms. By applying Levinas theory of alterity, the thesis illustrates the marginalization, victimization, and oppression of transgender people living in Pakistani society by cisgender people.