In Iran, you can't be gay but you can be transgender

[webfact]

In Iran, you can't be gay but you can be transgender



In Iran – you can’t be gay, but you are allowed to be transgender

THERAN: -- A loophole in the law means the strictly-religious country performs more sex-change operations than any other, except Thailand.

Ten years ago, Tarane was known as Amir. That was before she met a woman in a café who had undergone sex change surgery.

“When I left the cafe, I was no longer Amir,” she says, “I realised what my dreams were all about. I felt like I had finally been freed from my shackles.”

In Iran, same-sex relationships are punishable by death. But there is no law against sex-change operations in the Koran – and the procedure has flourished.

Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei says it is a case of what is not expressly forbidden is allowed:“In Islam, there is a principle which says that everything is allowed unless there are strong arguments against it or a law forbidding it.”

“I have never felt any regret, but without the support from my friends, I would not have managed the first year” says Tarane. “My mother only called the hospital once, to find out if I had woken up from the anaesthetic, nothing more.”

Human rights groups are critical, however. They say people should not be forced to change sex to survive.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-10-16

[ezzra]

Oh well, Don't go the mad man Mullahs the leaders of Iran that this situation is going on as it is, or a whole lot of construction's cranes will brought out for a mass hanging.....

[OMGImInPattaya]

I've already booked my next holiday for Tehran.

[h90]

I think you can be gay in Iran, only you can't have sex with other men, have a relation.

Which is a significant difference.

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

I think you can be a goat too, just not gay.

[slapout]

Just viewing the photo above the operation may be the easy part, finding a match as ugly as what apparently results may require a life time of search and travel.

[GAZZPA]

I think people should live and let live under the usual conditions that they do no hurt anyone.

But, there is something I do not understand here. When you are born you are born man or woman (duhh) and nothing can ever change that. So, in the Koran it states no homosexual relationships, as it does in the Bible.

So people of faith see God as the Creator, he created everything we see around us, the whole universe and of course us. He has also pre determined our gender.

So, these people who have strange urges to "change" their sex cannot actually ever change their sex, not really. Yes, they can have surgery, take tablets, wear womens clothes etc,, but this is all "window dressing" (excuse the pun). A man born a man can never be a woman, he can never have sex and conceive a child, can never produce milk for the baby and can never truly understand what it is to be a woman,

So, who are they kidding. To God they are still a man. You cannot fool God, he knows that they are men and not women. All the man made procedures to disguise this fact mean nothing,,

So, how is it that it is ok to have a sex change and then have sex with a man as a "transgender". Surely in Gods eyes you are a man and you are sleeping with another man?

It may not specifically say in the Koran that men who have sex change surgery can still not sleep with another man but i would have thought that obvious as there was no sex change surgery around at that time.

I mean no offence to anyone, just being straight and honest with my point.

[granuaile]

Oh well, Don't go the mad man Mullahs the leaders of Iran that this situation is going on as it is, or a whole lot of construction's cranes will brought out for a mass hanging.....

The clerics are the ones who authorized it. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini himself issued the fatwah in 1987, and there is continued support for this from clerics. I was trying to find the fatwah itself (but lazy to dig for it) - there is however a good article on Wikipedia about the subject - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran - which also notes that there is at least one who considers it a human right. There was a rather ambiguous Sunni fatwa as well, by the Grand Imam of the Al Azhar Mosque that possibly also supports it. While I don't support Iran's position on gays (and Iran is by far not the only country that can be criticized in that regard), it is correct to make a distinction between transsexuality and sexual orientation. They are different things totally, and transsexuals can be gay/lesbian (in which case they would face penalties though the penalties are for the sexual acts and require several witnesses), bisexual, or even asexual. In Pakistan, hijira have been recognized by the government and I believe there are even some government positions that have quotas.

[Mudcrab]

I think people should live and let live under the usual conditions that they do no hurt anyone.

But, there is something I do not understand here. When you are born you are born man or woman (duhh) and nothing can ever change that. So, in the Koran it states no homosexual relationships, as it does in the Bible.

So people of faith see God as the Creator, he created everything we see around us, the whole universe and of course us. He has also pre determined our gender.

So, these people who have strange urges to "change" their sex cannot actually ever change their sex, not really. Yes, they can have surgery, take tablets, wear womens clothes etc,, but this is all "window dressing" (excuse the pun). A man born a man can never be a woman, he can never have sex and conceive a child, can never produce milk for the baby and can never truly understand what it is to be a woman,

So, who are they kidding. To God they are still a man. You cannot fool God, he knows that they are men and not women. All the man made procedures to disguise this fact mean nothing,,

So, how is it that it is ok to have a sex change and then have sex with a man as a "transgender". Surely in Gods eyes you are a man and you are sleeping with another man?

It may not specifically say in the Koran that men who have sex change surgery can still not sleep with another man but i would have thought that obvious as there was no sex change surgery around at that time.

I mean no offence to anyone, just being straight and honest with my point.

Only if you believe in the rather quaint notion of a "God".

[barmatt]

haha the old loophole.....so they've now made it legal to bang a guy up the ass so there's no need for the gays to come to Thailand to bang the ladyboys anymore.