I noticed HRT is technically allowed and debatebly encouraged under Shariah so am now reading wikipedia articles about Trans rights in Iran
I believe the context of this was not really the LGBT-positive view that this post makes it seem to be, but that gay people would be accepted if they agreed to sex reassignment, and being gay was not acceptable otherwise? Am I wrong?
Also trans people in Iran were only recognized if they have undergone sex reassignment surgey and still faced major societal discrimination.
You are right. The Iran sane-washing is out of fucking control. It’s being done in bad faith across the internet.
Yeah, forcing gay people to undergo surgery so that they would no longer be considered gay, in my opinion, is not “onto something”
While I cannot speak for trans people, I would expect them to agree that it is wrong to potentially inflict suffering related to gender dysphoria on people that may not experience it otherwise. I see trans people fight for the right to live as the gender that they identity with, and this is really the opposite of that goal in many cases.
Yeah and forcing trans people to get bottom surgery to be recognized is pretty fucked up. Not every trans person has gender dysphoria for their genitals, so it’s just ignorant gatekeeping and arbitrary enforcement of the gender binary, which only serves to hurt trans people generally and erase nonbinary people.
Yeah, enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Just because Trump is bombing Iran, doesn’t mean I’m going to act like they don’t have extremely bigoted laws against LGBTQ+ people (not that bombing is ever justified, but it’s possible to disapprove of both at the same time).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosexuality
The Iran sane-washing is out of fucking control. It’s being done in bad faith across the internet.
I’m willing to bet this is partly a right wing/russian shill campaign to once again discredit and make the left look like the crazy one.
Not really? 1980s trans rights movements in Iran were mainly spearheaded by the activist “Maryam Khatoon Molkara” who convinced the supreme leader of then that gender reassignment surgery should be a religious right.
She is a really cool figure to learn about btw. Continued advocating for Iranian trans rights after that.
And yes there was and is still a shit ton of discrimination, even for people that have lots of connections.
There is still extremely violent oppression to gay people for example so they often havs to go through sex-reassignment surgery as a depressing-that-this-is-needed loophole.
I am not trying to paint Iran like some form of “misunderstood lgbtq+ paradise,” they are not that.
Simply wanted to mention there are in fact progressive movements there. A lot of people seem to believe in “all brown people are religious extremists.”
Yes, really.
in Iran, homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. But the government has provided a way out for the nation’s gays and lesbians: a sex-change operation. Fully paid for by the state, the procedure would allow these people to conform to Iran’s theocratic standards of sexuality.
a culture so steeped in hatred of gays and lesbians that it deems a sex change preferable to simply accepting differences in sexual orientation. The shift in policy came more than two decades ago, when Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini issued a fatwa (religious decree) declaring sex changes permissible for “diagnosed transsexuals.”
A lot of people seem to believe in “all brown people are religious extremists.”
I do not believe that all brown people are religious extremists, but this is an extremely poor example to use for proving this misguided belief wrong, because it is actually an example of religious extremism.
Ah you replied just as I was fixing my comment. It’s fucking dystopian yes, but this was not “the reason Iran got sex-reassignment surgery.”
Yeah it was basically denying the existence of gay people and instead forcing them to be trans, not exactly the progressive move it sounds like.
Yeah, it’s a fascinating situation, but it really sucks still. Years ago I met a trans woman from Iran (she was a recent refugee to the US out of fear of persecution as a lesbian and an atheist) and she talked about how while the official government policy was that transition was ok, you basically had to do it as fast as possible and dedicate your life to ensuring you quickly become indistinguishable from cis people. This woman was shocked that I was casually transitioning while putting more effort into college than passing.
Surgery is scary
