CONSTRUCTING THE TRANSGENDER IDENTITY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COMEDIC OTHERING VS. SOCIO-POLITICAL HUMANIZATION ON PAKISTANI YOUTUBE

Abstract

The rapid digitization of Pakistan's mediascape has transformed how the khawaja sira (transgender) community is constructed in public discourse. Historically relegated to comedic relief in legacy broadcast media, transgender identity now occupies a contested representational space on YouTube. This study examines the algorithmic polarization of transgender identity through a comparative Qualitative Content Analysis of eight purposively sampled videos, contrasting the entertainment genre (Nadir Ali, Rana Ijaz) with the socio-political genre (Syed Muzammil Hussain, Dr. Mehrub Moiz Awan). Guided by Stuart Hall's (1997) Representation Theory and Robert Entman's (1993) Framing Theory, the analysis reveals two mutually exclusive paradigms Comedic Othering which migrates stage-drama tropes into digital spaces to frame the transgender body as a hyper-sexual nuisance for algorithmic profit, and Socio-Political Humanization, which repositions the khawaja sira as an intellectually and constitutionally empowered citizen. The findings demonstrate that Pakistani YouTube functions simultaneously as an ideological perpetuator of marginalization and a catalyst for digital inclusion, underscoring the need for localized algorithmic moderation.