Unveiling the Destabilization of Gender Norms: Intersectional Resistance in Saim Sadiq’s Joyland

This article examines Saim Sadiq’s Joyland (2022) through the frameworks of gender studies and queer theory, analysing how it challenges dominant gender and sexuality narratives in South Asia. Focusing on Biba, a trans woman and erotic dancer, and Haider, a cisgender man grappling with societal expectations, the film destabilizes Pakistan’s heteronormative and patriarchal norms. It employs Gayatri Gopinath’s (2005, Impossible desires: Queer diasporas and South Asian public cultures , Duke University Press) ‘hijrotic’ concept to highlight trans desire as central to South Asian public culture, not marginal. Drawing on Judith Butler’s (1990, Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity , Routledge) gender performativity and R. W. Connell’s and J. W. Messerschmidt’s (2005, Gender & Society , 19 (6), 829–859) hegemonic masculinity, it explores Haider’s evolving gender identity. Despite Pakistan’s legal recognition of transgender individuals, Joyland exposes the gap between formal rights and lived oppression, showing how trans and female bodies are controlled through domestic labour and public morality. The film serves as a critical lens for understanding the complex interplay of gender, sexuality and class in contemporary South Asia.