After Thailand, which country do you think performs the greatest number of gender re-assignment surgeries? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer isn’t the United States, England, or Canada: it’s Iran. The same state which imposes severe criminal penalties for homosexuality simultaneously accommodates for, and even promotes, sex change operations. Under a 1985 fatwa issued by religious figurehead Ayatollah Khomeini, sex change operations are legally sanctioned for “diagnosed transsexuals”.
How are transsexual Iranians “diagnosed”, exactly? The process isn’t an easy one, and can involve months, sometimes years, of psychiatric consultations. Once diagnosed with a gender-identity disorder, Iranians can then petition their local government to issue a permit allowing them to cross-dress in public – until they can undergo surgery.
For thousands of Iranian transsexuals, surgery is the best means of gaining acceptance, both in the eyes of the law and of their families. Acceptance, unfortunately, is not always guaranteed. Many transsexuals are cast out and disowned by their parents.
For transsexual Ali Askar, a procedure performed in Dr. Mir Jalili’s surgery in Tehran allowed her to become Negar Askar. The government subsidised part of her surgery, and following the procedure, changed her birth certificate to reflect her new gender. This is now standard practice in Iran. In 2007, it was reported that the Iranian government provides grants of up to $2,500 for sex change operations.
If the official Iranian position on transsexuality and homosexuality appears contradictory, that’s because it is. In last month’s visit to the UN headquarters in New York, President Ahmadinejad re-affirmed the now infamous statement he made in 2007 denying the existence of homosexuals in Iran. Four years on, and despite public outrage, Ahmadinejad doesn’t so much eat a slice of humble pie, as swallow a few modest crumbs: “Perhaps there are those who engage in [homosexual] activities”, he claimed, immediately qualifying this by saying, “but these are not known elements within Iranian society”.
As is often the case, willful ignorance on the part of public officials goes hand-in-hand with active condemnation: religious clerics decry homosexuality as haraam, and those suspected of sodomy are imprisoned or executed. By contrast, Iranian Shi’ite clerics do not consider transsexuality a sin – there is nothing in the Quran saying anything to that effect.
Under Iranian law, if you’re attracted to members of the same sex, that’s a problem; but if you’re attracted to members of the same sex and change your gender by way of surgical procedure, you now fall within more acceptable legal - as well as social - norms.
That’s not to say that all transsexuals are necessarily gay. Yet, the worrying trend in Iran supports claims that sex change operations are being used to re-classify homosexuals as heterosexuals. As Negar Askar tells documentary film-makers in Be Like Others: “Get a sex change in Iran. But don’t say you’re gay.”
