An activist in Pakistan is opening the country's first retirement home for transgender people.

Aashi Butt, herself transgender, is opening the home to care for a community that is often forced to become sex workers, beg on the streets, or perform as song and dance entertainers in order to survive, until they age out of the profession, reports The Express Tribune.

Butt said she is using the money she has made singing and dancing to launch the project, which has reportedly not received any outside funding.

So far, 60 people have signed up to live in the home, where they will not only be provided with food and shelter, but will also have access to free medical treatment. The facility will additionally include a lounge area, where residents can play games and watch TV, a small library, and a prayer corner.

"These people, rejected by their loved ones, can live in this old home like a big family," Butt said. She added that those living in the home "will be together in each other’s sorrow and happiness."

While consensual gay sex is still illegal in Pakistan, and members of the LGBT community do not have protections against discrimination in employment and housing, transgender people are allowed to change their legal gender without medical intervention or approval by a medical board.

And in 2016, a religious decree permitted the 10,000-plus transgender people estimated to be living in the country to legally marry.

Still, anti-transgender violence reamins an issue in Pakistan. Earlier this year, three transgender women were shot on the street after fending off unwanted sexual advances. A spokesperson for the group Trans Action Pakistan (TAP) reported local officials further harassed the victims.

In late January, Qamar Naseem of the Transgender Association told Pakistan Today their group had already documented 22 anti-trans attacks in 2018 alone.

The retirement home will open on Ramadan, which begins on May 15.

It follows on the heels of Pakistan's first school exclusively for transgender students, called The Gender Guardian, which opened last month.

Last year, universities in both India and Pakistan began offering free college tuition for transgender individuals.