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Transsexual In Iran: a BBC documentary
Now you see just one of the many problems that come with church rule over the people instead of a generally liberal state government by and for the people without religious interference.
Gay men turned in women, in a religious state is basically sanctioned surgical castration. Iran is a society that totally unable to and so overwhelmingly unwilling to cope with the ideas of homosexuality within its population and so, falls back to its inflexible religious doctrine for guidance and thus gives such Men no choice about it, you either have the operation and take the consequences of that or live a state of fear and persecution at the hand of both the Religious and State Law, (so obviously one and the same in Iran) and any person inthe street, male and female that wishes to attack you, and you can bet that what was not highighed in this film, thanks to state controls that are censorship, is how many guys and women are physically attacked and of these, how many get justice and how many die from attacks. The hidden figures that were not revealed durign this programme.
It is not surpring that a year later one of the girls whom had the OP was now working as a Sex Worker. I bet that she found it impossible to get a mainstream job alongside women as they might treat her as a woman with ID and etc but that still does not overcome the entrenched thinking towards homosexuality and neither does it truly address the levels of discrimination, in fact the whole idea of allowing religious LAW to guide you in this case has made third class citizens who cannot get equality and jobs, and, maybe the best they can hope for is “To be a wife to some decent guy”: as was uttered by someone during the doco. Wow, is the best one can hope for? Such prospects, such fulfillment!
But what are the alternatives? To runaway to another country? Would the United Nations and our own Australia help such men and women to find a better home? This would now create a Gender/ Sexual Refugee who is also a Political/ Religious Refugee.It too is not surprising how ONE year later this one girl was still feeling alientated and bitter towards her family, and unwilling to even approach them, given hardly was she in post-op recovery than her brother didn’t want to answer the telephone as he was so ashamed. Is that what drives people in Iran, personal and family shame that somebody has been forced by the Religious LAW into lopping off their reproductive organs all because homosexuality is ILLEGAL. Who should be truly ashamed is not these unfortanate girls but the whole of Iran and its thinking which is set down in a book and interpreted in only one way. That’s who should be ashamed of themselves, those that condone such practises, both openly and subversively.
Of course we only saw the “good side” of this situation in Iran, but wasn’t it amazing how the young female Iranian reporter who happened to be there doing interviews at the same time in the Clinic was NOT able to maintain a neutrality towards the ‘girls’ and infact seemed to be attacking. Now A: that is a bad reporter and B: there is clearly a case of deep religious indoctrination working so very hard within her to protect the people from Subversive sexual deviancy influences such as GAYs. She also pushed the idea of the binary gender system.
And yet, as we saw, these girls now go out and be a wife for an hour! So, on the one hand Iran evil personifies GAY guys and turns them into women, whilst creating yet another sex worker to be fed straight into the underground Gay male community which Iran so obviously despises in the first instance. Congratulations: by persecuting and then turning many males into women you are actually HELPING to create and perpetuate a Dirty Cycle? Can you NOT see that repression and denial is NOT the best of any answers? Can you NOT see that burrying your head in the sand regarding homosexuality is NOT the answer? Of course, this is clearly another situation whereby Church has ALL the POWER and thus ALL the CONTROL over ALL people within its domain, just like all Religious organisations attempt to do or are doing! And they don’t care, because its about POWER and don’t you! And dear reader, don’t you ever forget it too!!
My heart goes out to all those “new women” who are treated in such ways by a regime that takes away a persons born Male or Female status and to have sex with whom ever they wish and their reproductive rights too. It is sickening that such barbarity exists, it ranks alongside female circumcision which is still practise in several nations.
Australia (and to similar extents much of the 1st world) is EXTREMELY fortune to have the Expression of Gender and Sexual freedoms we now have, including (mostly) Equal Rights and (mostly) Equal Reproductive ability. If you are out of the closet: Celebrate this and your freedom and keep challenging the ways things are to make sure we get TOTAL Equal Rights. And if you are not out the closet, then you should be or you too are living in a Self- imposed repression and are not fulfilling one of the most important parts of YOUR life.
Forget not those freedoms we enjoy in Australia. When you are next out with friends, be thankful for what you have and support those that are struggling.
And never ever forget too that those of us who are Transgender it is not about our sexuality but IT IS ABOUT OUR GENDER!
By
AbbeyJane
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1 Reply
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Fundamentalism tends to simplify all things. Some things are best simplified, gender disorientation is not one of them. Thankfully we have emerged from that type of barbarity. However it wasn’t that long ago we had similar, albeit not quite as harsh, laws.
