Transsexuals in Kuwait: Criminals or victims?
Published Date: April 16, 2010
By Hassan A. Bari, Staff Writer
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTIzNjc2MzI2MQ==The term 'transsexual' (third gender or she-male as they are locally known) is often mistaken for homosexuality in the Arab world and is considered highly sinful in Islam. This is why most Arab transsexuals, especially men, prefer keeping a low profile. In some Arab countries, they can face jail sentences for dressing or acting like the opposite sex. In some cases they can even be punished or killed by their families.
It is far easier for a woman to have a sex change operation and become a man. For instance, the recent Yemeni case of Nabila who discovered after a two-year marriage that she had been born male with a deformed masculine reproductive organ that had been reversed into her body since birth. On the other hand, a man who becomes a woman is seen to have dishonored the family since women are more vulnerable than men in the Arab world.
