The Strange Attitude in Iran Towards Male Homosexuality and Male Transsexualism

It is alleged that Iranian society is deeply hypocritical because they try not onto to convert gay men to heterosexuality but if that fails, they often try to get them to because transsexuals and transition. This isn’t as nuts as it sounds. Ayatollah Khomeini allowed transgenderism because he decided that transsexuals were created by God. There was nothing cynical about the decision as many regime haters say. He simply reached this decision on solid theological grounds. However, he decided that gay men were choosing to be gay, so they had to be punished. And the punishment for male homosexuality as in other Shia societies, was ruled to be the death penalty. Khomeini accepted transgenderism and said they should not be persecuted, so this opened the door for people to use it as an out for homosexuality. People say that the acceptance of transgenderism while retaining condemnation of homosexuality is Iran’s way of being homophobic, but it’s more complex than that. These people don’t understand societies where clerics make religious decisions. The decisions cannot be analyzed based on logic. They are based on scriptural interpretations and are outside the realm of logic and whatnot. So Khomeini allowed transgenders as they were created by God, he said, but he said homosexuals were choosing it, so he continued to condemn them. It’s logical if you assume that transgenders are were born that way, and gay people just decide it on a whim. After Khomeini opened the door, this allowed the regime to offer gay people the possibility of transition. That this goes against the meat of Khomeini’s ruling is no matter. People don’t understand the Iranian regime at all. Yes, they are very traditional and conservative, but they are also very pragmatic in the way that the Shia are. Iran killed 6,000 homosexuals from the start of the revolution until 10 years ago. They caught a lot of crap for that. But the mullahs continue to say that homosexuality is a sin, and I think the official ruling is that they should be killed. The regime is going outside this ruling by refusing to kill them anymore, probably due to outside pressure. Now they are trying to figure out how to deal with the homosexuals in their society. They can’t just accept them because there are religious injunctions against that. So what to do? Well, as the clerics ok’d transgenderism, we can always convince the gays to transition and thereby get around this criticism we are getting for attacking gays. That it is illogical in terms of Khomeini’s ruling that they were created by God is no matter. The regime is just trying to figure out how to deal with this problem for which they have gotten a lot of criticism while still staying within scriptural boundaries. Of course they are twisting the letter of the law, but that is what Shiism is all about. Twisting the letter of the law in the interests of pragmatism. I have no idea how Iranians feel about transsexuals. The regime obviously likes them better than homosexuals. No one gives two damns about lesbians in Iran or anywhere else on Earth for that matter. As is the case for most homophobes, all the anger is directed at gay men. This is not some new thing. Iranian society has been homophobic forever. Gay men are called “not-men.” That’s the literal translation of the word in a society based on machismo. Homophobia is not some new thing created by the clerics. “Look if we can get these gays to transition, then we can get out of all this criticism we get for attacking gays while still remaining true to religion.” That’s their attitude.  

Please follow and like us:
error3
fb-share-icon20
Tweet 20
fb-share-icon20

2 thoughts on “The Strange Attitude in Iran Towards Male Homosexuality and Male Transsexualism”

  1. Hm. Transsexualism is widely accepted across the Islamic world, though not everywhere. In fact, ‘hijra’ one of the words for an Indian MtF transsexual, is actually an Arabic word. Waria are Islamic transsexuals of Indonesia, etc etc.
    In the Iranian case, the legal position is that ONE of the parties to a male homosexual relationship must consent to Genital Reconstruction Surgery (a ‘sex change’). Not both. Once this is done, the former man is a woman and the couple is a heterosexual one, everything is normalised and sweetness and light prevail.
    Most Iranians would not know if they were addressing a transsexual because of the conservative dress code that requires a woman to at least wear a head-covering in public.
    I seriously doubt if any Iranian cares very much whether a person is transsexual, as long as the person is conforming to the social norms for the presented gender. Iranians, perhaps surprisingly, are generally laid-back people.
    ‘Not-men’ is a term widely used by ethnographers to describe the status of homosexual and other gender non-conforming males in traditional societies. It was used by Dr Don Kulick in his research of Brazilian travestis, trans prostitutes, basically; although he did not coin it, he popularised its more general use. The concept is current throughout most of the world and it works very nicely. It precisely describes a culture wherein ‘men’; is a group made up exclusively of males, that is rigidly internally policed in terms of behaviours, and ‘not-men’ is everyone else, including women. In basic terms, if you don’t make the cut as a member of the ‘men’ group, you get put in the ‘not-men’ group. And being homosexual absolutely, in these cultures, disbars you from the ‘men’ group.
    These groups, ‘men’ and ‘not-men’ are analogous to the hunter or ‘away’ group and the domestic or ‘home’ group respectively. This is the basis of human society; it is a system that exposes men to the greatest risk but protects mothers and children as much as possible. It has been massively successful.
    Membership of the ‘men’ or ‘away’ group is conditional on passing certain tests, rituals etc and behaving in certain ways. Membership of the ‘home’ or ‘not-men’ group is not conditional on anything at all, and people in it have complete freedom of expression.
    It’s just in the West that it gets all screwed up, due to ongoing homophobia.

  2. So a heterosexual man in these societies with a flawed personality…maybe he is unusually passive, crippled by shyness or overly emotional, and thus has difficulty attracting a woman and engaging in the usual banter and one-upmanship with his male peers…would he be considered a ‘not man’ and gain a measure of acceptance? (My guess is ‘no’ but I then again I didn’t know about the two-spirit thing either.)
    In the west he might be part of the ‘PUA’ scene for a while (which has been around long before the media discovered it and at its core is basically a hetero male self-improvement club) or maybe he’s a ‘nice guy’ who hangs out in the ‘manosphere’ bitterly nursing a grudge against women, or a self-loathing loner hooked on drugs or video games. If he fails to overcome his character flaws, and isn’t mistaken for a homosexual, our society classifies a guy like this a loser of the failed heterosexual variety and leaves him to his fate. It’s mostly an unspoken thing though. (And it demonstrates the official feminist/SJW/media line about our era of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ is bullshit. Nobody loves an awkward straight guy.)
    Speaking of gender, I am not very familiar with non-binary gender stuff..how did we even get from two genders to 70? Initially I just dismissed these people as freaks and didn’t think about it further but I am genuinely curious as to what motivates them and how they experience their sexuality/gender.
    I still think someone who claims their gender is Jedi etc. is psychologically disturbed. They are either male or female (or asexual I suppose) regardless of what they say publicly. How many people does this even encompass? The hype about trans this and trans is way out of proportion to the numbers…I mean if homosexual males and lesbians are > 3% of the population how many Jedisexuals can there be? Or am I missing something here?
    Strange times we live in…

Leave a Reply to Rod Fleming Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)