A religious leader in India repeatedly slams the transgender community, known as hijras, saying these individuals have 'physiological and hormonal difficulties'.

A video in which a Muslim leader decries the transgender and intersex community has gone viral on YouTube.

The interview, translated from Hindi, shows the founder and president of India's Islamic Research Center (IRC), a non-profit organization that promotes Islamic teachings, answering a question about how the 'other' gender that is neither man nor woman fits in Islam.

Faiz Syed said in his response: 'They are what we call hijra, in our language. They are neither male nor female.' 

Hijra, a slang term in Hindu, is the only word to describe a trans individual.

Syed continued, emphasizing that 'They are Allah's creations, expect their are some physiological and hormonal difficulties. They have changes in their bodies, what we call "gene defects" in our language.'

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