Removing the offending member: Iran and the sex-change or die option as the alternative to the death sentencing of homosexuals.

B.J. Carter. Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, Jun 22, 2011
http://find.galegroup.com/gic/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&docType=IAC&sort=DateDescend&tabID=T002&searchId=R1&docId=A261731547&prodId=GIC&currentPosition=1&userGroupName=gale&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sgHitCountType=None&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2CUS%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28PI%2CNone%2C5%29G1047%24&inPS=true&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=A261731547&docType=IAC

In Iran, sex-change surgery as a means of the 'normalization' (1) of homosexual men and women is an ongoing policy objective of the theocracy. (2) Iran has "a culture so steeped in hatred of gays and lesbians that it deems a sex-change preferable to simply accepting differences in sexual orientation." (3) There is an inherent tension between the Iranian theocracy's conservative interpretations of Islam and homosexuality (4) and homosexual acts. It is convention in Islam that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (5) is not an identity or a status, as it has become more recently in Western cultures. (6) In conservative interpretations of Iranian Islamic law, if one commits a homosexual act (two or more people of the same sex touching each other in a sexual manner) that act is a crime akin to murder or rape. (7)

This is from June, but it got re-reported somewhere and it's the first time I've seen it.

Kia Ora Felix,

I remember reading a few years back when the Iranian president was on a visit to the US, he was speaking at a university when he was ask this question "Are there any 'homosexuals' in Iran, and his answer was "There are no homosexuals in Iran !" However what he meant by this is gay and lesbian people have two options 1) either have a government funded[well partly funded] 'sex change' or  2) be executed...

So if you are 'transsexual' no problems, but if you're gay/lesbian well..............................................

This was also the case in South Africa during the Apartheid era[however I don't think they faced the death penalty there] but they were more or less forcing gay and lesbian people who were conscripted into the arm forces to undergo a sex change-again this was also government funded....

Metta Zenda