Still from Daisy Mohr and Negin Kianfar’s 2006 documentary “The Birthday,” about sex changes in Iran
One of the weirder outcomes of combining fundamentalist religion with national governance is that you have the leader of your country say things like “There are no gays in Iran. We do not have this phenomenon,” at an American university, only to be practically laughed offstage and spend the next week backtracking on the statement.
Another is that your country finds itself in the somewhat awkward position of punishing homosexuality with death, yet publicly funding gender reassignment surgery. According to this recent report in the Guardian UK, Iran is second only to Thailand in the amount of sex change surgeries performed there. Yep, folks – sharia law commands that gays be killed for having sex with each other only once, and that lesbians be executed if they have sex four times (talk about double standards!). But it’ll foot your trans bill.
Yet another strange thing to emerge from this situation is that your country is so fucked up that the leader of the major transsexual organization can say, as Maryam Khatoon Molkara recently did, “Transsexuality is a real disaster. It’s a one-way street. But if somebody wants to study, have a future and live like others they should go through this surgery.” Eek. (She herself convinced Khomeini to make transsexuality legal — no small potatoes!)
Iran’s fundamental answer to gay love is change one of the partners into a woman. Shazam!