What bothers me about the Islamic countries I've been to is that religion is enforced with the stick but that's about all. I figured people in these countries would be pious and morally responsible on the whole because religion is heavily mixed with culture and daily life. But they only have to obey the book and not harrass the Muslimahs. Then moral responsibility is free to fly out the window.
It's quite the eye opener to go to one of these places where women cover up and men are supposed to avert their gaze from them, and realize that this only applies to their own. A non-Muslim woman is fair game for harassment in Morocco, particularly if she isn't accompanied by a man and not wearing something that covers most of her up. Now we knew this full well before we went and every female in our group made sure not to wear anything short and revealing, at any point anywhere near a town or village. Even so 8 and 9 year old kids were acting like little pervs around our camp, saying something about the ideas they're brought up with, and the view from their media and digestion of our media is that Western women are whores and totally fair game. I couldn't go around some Roman ruins at one point without some 20 ish year old trying to grab my hand and asking if I was married. Pretty much had to be 'guarded' whenever I went into a town by 2 or more male colleagues (I had about 30 so I didn't get too heckled, but whenever I went off by myself... it was a gauntlet to run and I didn't ever NOT cover up through the whole trip. Got heatstroke thanks to it). I trekked all over Morocco for three months and it was pretty much the same all over. Good thing we were there for the wilderness and not the towns.
The old dudes were all right, very hospitable... still like to compliment a nice face and that's no crime, but the young men and the kids, had to avoid them like the plague and have a dozen 'bodyguards' to put them off.
In Saudi youths take pleasure in chasing women who don't cover up and scaring the beezeejus outta them.
They do everything possible to make sure they are seen as good Muslims within their own community but it just doesn't matter how you treat non-Muslims in some of these places. An exclusive club. Not really about being universally moral but just ticking the boxes in the Koran. Not much fun being seen as a non-Muslim woman in a Muslim country. Knowing what it's like for cis women, I can imagine it's probably not that hard to be taken for one of them even if trans, provided you play their game and hide yourself. Hell, you could probably wear a burka in some and no-one would ever know or bother to check outside airports. If you pass enough, and don't bring attention to yourself I suppose the worst treatment you'd get would be that which cis women receive.
But I'd never live in a country with Islamic law. I don't even want to imagine how a transman would be treated in some of them.
