Trapped in transit: Public transport as structural stigma and minority stress in the lives of transgender individuals in Pakistan

Purpose Transgender health inequities are increasingly understood as linked to structural stigma embedded within everyday institutional environments. While healthcare and policing have received scholarly attention as sites of exclusion, public transport remains an underexplored setting shaping lived experiences of psychological strain, particularly in Global South contexts. This study examines how everyday mobility environments are experienced by transgender individuals in urban Pakistan, with attention to how these encounters are perceived as stressful and psychologically burdensome.Methods This study adopts an interpretive qualitative design using reflexive thematic analysis. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 22 transgender individuals from diverse socio-economic backgrounds who regularly use public transport. Interviews explored experiences of safety and unsafety during travel, encounters with harassment, emotional responses to mobility, and the ways in which travel shaped access to employment and healthcare.Results Participants described recurrent exposure to public scrutiny, verbal harassment, and perceived institutional inaction while using buses and shared transport systems. These experiences were often interpreted by participants as patterned forms of disadvantage embedded within transport environments. Participants described experiences consistent with ongoing psychological strain, including feelings of anxiety, emotional fatigue, heightened alertness, and efforts to avoid certain routes or times of travel. Many participants reported delaying healthcare visits, restricting employment-related mobility, and limiting social participation due to travel-related concerns, contributing to experiences of constraint and isolation.Conclusions Public transport emerges as an overlooked yet significant context shaping everyday well-being among transgender individuals. Rather than isolated incidents, participants’ accounts highlight how mobility-related stigma is experienced as repetitive and cumulative. Addressing these concerns requires attention to inclusive urban planning, sensitization of transport personnel, and the development of accessible and responsive complaint mechanisms. Such measures may contribute to improving everyday mobility experiences and reducing exclusion.