While a majority of transgender people in the country still identify as khawaja siras, many young transgender men and women, emboldened by new rights and a connection to a global identity, are rejecting the culture, saying it exploits disoriented young people instead of providing the promised safety net.

Qasim Iqbal, the executive director of trans-rights group Naz Pakistan, said, “While the guru system has its benefits and definitely provides protection, some young educated people — especially those with access to social media, who are working closely with rights groups and are more aware of their own rights — they are starting to identify less with the khawaja sira culture and more with a global trans-identity.”

Perhaps no one better represents the deepening schism between the traditional khawaja sira culture and a new wave of those with transgender identity than Kami Sid, 27, who rose to fame last year after a fashion shoot as Pakistan’s first transgender model.

Image Kami Sid, 27, who rose to fame last year after a fashion shoot as Pakistan’s first transgender model. Credit... Haseeb Siddiqui

“A third gender or sex means you are on the sidelines, you are something extra,” said Ms. Sid, who began transitioning to becoming a woman about five years ago. “I am a woman. I want to be part of the mainstream. I reject any culture that says I am a third something.”

The transgender population in Pakistan finds some semblance of tolerance because of historical and cultural perceptions, and because the group is “a minority that doesn’t threaten anyone,” said Nadeem F. Paracha, a popular cultural critic and senior columnist for the Dawn Newspaper in Pakistan.

“For centuries, from the time of the Mughal empire, they have been perceived as having been born with physical or sexual ambiguities, and so they are considered special,” Mr. Paracha said. “They have this status as God’s chosen people, and that is where the acceptability stems from: that God made them this way, and so the rest of us have to accept them. And in fact, in the South Asian imagination, there is this idea that they have powers to bless and curse people, which is why you see people from this community at wedding ceremonies or when children are born.”