Progress for Transgender People in Iran
2009 September 14
by Carrie Polansky
http://genderacrossborders.com/2009/09/14/progress-for-transgender-people-in-iran/Iran is notorious for its destructive treatment of gays and lesbians. The country is less known, however, for its somewhat progressive attitudes toward transgender people. Since 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa authorizing sex-reassignment surgery for "diagnosed transsexuals," more sex-reassignment surgeries have occurred in Iran than nearly anywhere else in the world (save for Thailand).
Salon explains this phenomenon in more detail:
In contrast to almost everywhere else in the Muslim world, sex change operations are legal in Iran for anyone who can afford the minimum $3,500 cost and satisfy interviewers that he or she meets necessary psychological criteria. As a result, women who endured agonizing childhood and adolescent experiences as boys, and — albeit in fewer numbers — young men who reached sexual maturity as girls, are easy to find in Tehran. Iran has even become a magnet for patients from eastern European and Arab countries seeking to change their gender.
