"Give me a chance," Nadeem Kashish pleads with voters in Islamabad. Her struggle is not for power -- she knows her campaign is futile -- but for acceptance, as transgenders make historic bids in the upcoming Pakistan election.
"I am contesting for the first time and your vote will give me my identity," Kashish tells residents as she goes from door to door in a low-income neighbourhood near the Sufi shrine of Bari Imam, in the north of the capital.
Kashish, slender and clad in yellow plaid, is contesting in a district that pits her against incumbent prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and opposition leader Imran Khan.
She is armed with small black and white leaflets displaying her picture and mobile phone number which she hands out enthusiastically to everyone she meets: shopkeepers, motorcyclists, pedestrians.
Two sentences printed on it amount to her manifesto: "Preserve water for the next generation" and "I need your support".
But the vote on July 25 is not about winning or losing for Pakistan's transgenders, she says. "We have been given support and space by the government (to contest the elections) and we will use this opportunity with full force."