Tehran, the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Iran, made a decision in early March to prohibit transgender people from appearing in the city’s most popular areas.
The Tehran town council’s decision to ban transgender individuals coincides with US President Biden’s declaration that March 31 is the “Transgender Day of Visibility.”
According to a report from the US-funded Radio Farda, Alireza Nadali, a spokesman for the Tehran town council, stated that transgender people shouldn’t gather at crowded places like the Valiasr Intersection.
“We’re not ignoring the issue,” he said. “There should be a space for them, just not in this busy location,” Nadali added.
According to Farda, Valiasr Intersection is a significant location in Tehran due to its historical importance and role as the site of major public gatherings, including protests.
Jessica Emamu, an Iranian-American gay psychologist, told The Jerusalem Post, “The Iranian state has used transgender surgeries as a means to control discourse on queer individuals. They force gay and lesbian individuals to undergo surgery to change their gender. That’s the only reason why they tolerate transsexuals.” She added, “Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any transgender people.”
She argued that the government seeks to “control their social life and reputation.” According to Emamu, these announcements by city officials do nothing to help LGBTQ families facing internal aggression, and the policy does not prevent honor killings committed by family members.
Regarding being transgender in Iran, Gizi Pour, an Iranian-American immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights advocate, stated that the government has realized being transgender is different from being gay, for whom they have identified sexual history activity. Pour added, “Regardless of the country they reside in, the transgender community is never safe.”
She continued, “Transgender people also face severe physical assault and death here in the US. The transgender community can’t be stereotyped as gay or lesbian, according to the regime, which is evidently apparent. They are innovative, extravagant, and fierce. The government prefers to exclude them rather than include them in society.”
A strategy for repression
Many opponents view the Islamic Republic of Iran’s transgender policy as a form of oppression. In a 2019 article, The Economist reported that the Islamic Republic has used sex-reassignment surgery (SRS) to remove gay and lesbian people from public life.
According to activists and psychologists in Iran, gay Iranians are pressured to change their gender, regardless of their own desires. Professionals tell individuals with same-sex desires that they may be transgender, not homosexual,” wrote The Economist. A lesbian psychologist in Tehran stated, “I didn’t realize I was trans until I was 18.” There are no legal protections for gays, and no educational programs are in place for them.
The death penalty for same-sex relations is codified in the Islamic Sharia law system of the clerical regime. According to a 2008 American Wikileaks cable, the Iranian government executed between 4,000-6,000 gays and lesbians since the 1979 Islamic revolution. During the tenure of the Holocaust-denying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he claimed that his country had no gay people.
The second Supreme Leader of the totalitarian state, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, authorized SRS after meeting a transgender man in the mid-1980s.
Scottish Jewish journalist Eva Barlow posted on X last week, stating, “The betrayal by organizations like Queers For Palestine and LGBTQ+ popstars and artists for gay Jews like myself isn’t just about our expulsion from the tribe, but it’s also about their self-betrayal.” She added, “PRIDE is about self-assurance and self-confidence. No capitulating to others. No being overly concerned about making a friend.”
Queers For Palestine and LGBTQ+ popstars and artists for gay Jews like myself are all complicit in this betrayal, and it’s also about our expulsion from the community. PRIDE is about self-assurance and self-confidence. No capitulating to others.
— Eve Barlow (@Eve_Barlow) March 30, 2024
Emamu, the sociology, said American “Queers for Palestine concept is just a dream. She continued,” I do not fear that if unregulated groups of faggots went to Palestine without being informed, the state and the people would deal with them violently.”
She claimed that Palestinian LGBTQ people only gather in areas that are under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) because they are so threatened in areas like Nablus. Israeli LGBTQ individuals in Haifa, Israel, are kept safe from the PA, according to Emamu.
A section at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York City on Sunday that addresses the issue of gay Arab rehabilitation is a telling illustration of Western naiveté and a one-sided view of the dire situation of the LGBTQ+ community in the Gaza Strip and the wider Middle East.
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art states on its website that it is “a home for LGBTQIA + artists, scholars, activists, and allies, and a catalyst for discourse on art and queerness.”
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art received numerous inquiries from The Post. A press query was sent asking if the panel would discuss Hamas’ lethal homophobia, its persecution of gays and lesbians, and Hamas’ rape of people on October 7 after the jihadi terrorist group took hostages. The Museum refused to comment. Hamas was viewed by the US and Europe as a foreign terrorist organization.
Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, and the sections in the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority governs are considered the most dangerous places for LGBT travelers, according to a 2021 entry on the travel blog Asher and Lyric.
In the middle of the Middle East, Israel is widely regarded as the only safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a 2022 BBC article, “Gay Palestinian Ahmad Abu Marhia [who] was beheaded in West Bank.”
According to the report, “Palestinian police have arrested a suspect in the killing of a 25-year-old man after his body was discovered dead in the occupied West Bank.” According to LGBTQ organizations, he had been waiting for two years in Israel before seeking asylum after receiving death threats from members of his community.
In October 2022, an AP report said, “LGBT Palestinians Targeted by Hamas Regime. A Palestinian LGBT rights organization has been prohibited from organizing any activities in the West Bank and threatened to arrest them, according to the AP, because doing so would violate the “values of Palestinian society.”
The Hezbollah-affiliated Mayadeen TV network broadcast a report on the September 16, 2023, according to the US-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The reporter claimed that the UNRWA Code of Conduct promotes homosexuality and claims that there are homosexuals among UNRWA employees and refugees.
According to Muhammad Shwadeh of the UNRWA Workers Union, “it started” with equality between men and women, and now the organization is requesting equality for “groups that do not exist among the Palestinian people.”
Additionally, according to MEMRI, Palestinian Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousef Abu Islam said in a sermon delivered on June 26, 2022, that Allah’s law forbids homosexuals to be thrown head first from the roof of the tallest building before being stoned.
