Bangladesh’s government has also recently refused to repeal the laws, inherited from our colonial past, that criminalize homosexuality. (Similar laws still stand in India, too.) Apart from the fact that gay men and women who are not transgender are subject to these archaic laws, this means that while hijras are allowed to be members of a third gender, it is illegal for them, too, to have relationships with other members of their sex.

In a progressive parallel universe, hijras could be seen as an authentic South Asian expression of the fluidity of sexuality and gender identity. In this ideal world, they would challenge not only our binary notions of sexuality but also many assumptions about our otherwise rigid-seeming society.

But the Bangladeshi hijra refuses to comfortably fit into this framework, because she is not just defined by her hijra status but by all the cultural, social, political and economic frameworks in which she has to live.

Most likely born a boy (though a small number of hijras may be biologically intersex), she will have chosen, along the way, to identify as a woman. She will almost certainly have been abandoned by, or be estranged from, her family. And she is very likely to be a prostitute or beggar. As a result, she is also very likely to be involved with criminal gangs who control where and how she lives, whom she sleeps with, and whether or not she will ever be able to have children.

In a broader sense, an acceptance of the hijra identity doesn’t preclude rigid notions of masculinity and femininity from dominating in Bangladesh. Men and women are still expected to fit into tightly defined gender categories that determine their access to a host of opportunities, from education to health care. And there is still a deeply embedded and rarely challenged culture of homophobia across the social spectrum.

It is important to bear all of this in mind when we think about Labannya and other members of the hijra community. We may celebrate her new status as a full-fledged citizen of Bangladesh, and we must hope that her visibility as the defender of Mr. Rhaman — and perhaps soon as an official member of the traffic police — will alter her status. But it would be premature, to say the least, to pronounce the troubles of the hijras over.

Labannya might remind us again, here, of America’s Ms. Jenner. As we celebrate one exceptional individual, we must also press harder for the social and legal transformations that would grant broader rights for the whole panoply of sexual and gender identities: gay, hetero, trans, cis, “third” or otherwise.