Feministe.us – Posted by: piny
BBC News published an article a couple of weeks ago about transition in Iran. In Iran, it is legal to change sex: if you can convince a doctor that you are a transsexual, and if they permit you to undergo GRS, then you can legally change your name and gender on your identifying documents. (It’s a package deal: there’s only one way. In the states, “full” transition is usually privileged by the law over “partial” or “incomplete” transition, but the trend, knock wood, is towards autonomy and it’s not illegal to opt out of any procedure, stop hormones, or fail to change any marker on your documents.)
Sex changes have been legal in Iran since Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, passed a fatwa – a religious edict – authorising them for “diagnosed transsexuals” 25 years ago.