About eight months ago, Nagina Akram was a happily married woman but is now running a tyre shop and is looking for a suitable girl for "himself".

Born as a girl to a family in Ghaziabad in Pakistan’s Sindh province, Akram's father was a trader named Haji Akram.

As Nagina, she married an expatriate named Khalid who worked in Spain in 2011. Khalid and Akram spent two years as a happily married couple.

He would visit Pakistan every six months or so to see his wife. When the couple had no children even after two years of their marriage, Khalid asked his wife to consult a doctor.
That casual visit to gynaecologist Tahira Khalid changed everything for the couple, especially the wife, Dawn newspaper reported today.

The gynaecologist, after observing some changes occurring in Akram’s body, advised her to undergo tests at Karachi's Agha Khan Hospital.

The tests confirmed that Akram was undergoing a sex change and needed surgery, which was conducted at a private hospital, turning her into a man who was named Usman Akram, the report said.

At that time, Khalid was in Spain, busy trying to get documents to bring his "wife" to the European country.

Akram told Dawn that initially he felt very shy about the change he had gone through.
"For at least eight months, I shaved my face to grow facial hair so that I looked like a man," he said.

Soon after the medical tests confirmed signs of a sex change, he had informed Khalid about the development. Since then, they had not contacted each other.

Khalid’s family had amicably returned the dowry, he said. He said that since he needed some means to earn a livelihood, he started running a tyre shop at a bus stand.

Akram, who has been issued a new national computerised ID card with male status, is now looking for a suitable girl to marry, the report said.