Why do Iranian trans policies look so much like Western progressive ones?

No gay or the highway

By Anonymed (an anonymous Canadian Doctor)

In 2009, in front of an audience at Columbia University and with the world watching, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his country was in fact homorein. Allowing for the quirks of translation, he seemed to assert that homosexuality is a uniquely Western problem - a side effect of a toxic cocktail of hedonism and heathenism. The fact that he had the nerve to say something so obviously improbable shouldn't surprise us (this is the same man who had the roads in Tehran widened to accommodate an incoming and apparently claustrophobic Twelfth Imam). As Mark Steyn once said about Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust: “He doesn’t deny it because he thinks it isn’t true, he denies it because he can, and because it suits his purposes to do so.” Indeed. Iran surely has as many gays as any other society, but Ahmadinejad’s statement was actually a roundabout reflection of the brutal reality on the ground. 

Anyone familiar with recent Middle Eastern history will recall the images of bodies hanging from industrial cranes during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Many of these unfortunate men and women were members of the opposition, part of the Shah’s ruling class, "collaborators", and “westerners”, and were likely going that way regardless of their sexuality. But a good practice is a good practice, and the Mullahs didn't put the cranes away once the revolution was over. Incidentally, it is a peculiar Islamist pastime to expend mental energy figuring out how best to do away with homosexuals. The Taliban were particularly famous for such high level discussions (and may be so again). In a country with one of the lowest literacy rates in the world, these mujahideen put their minds to work on a comparative analysis of gay-murdering tactics. Should they be shot? Should they be buried under a pile of rocks and then have a tank drive over the rocks? Perhaps they could be hanged, but not like effete western, gallows, break-their-neck hang them. No. Put a rope around their necks, attach the other end to a tank barrel and slowly raise it up. As one can imagine, this is less a hanging than an elaborate strangulation. Islamic State, as was its way, was much more decisive and voted pretty much unanimously to throw gays off the roofs of tall buildings. Public and cheap. In Saudi Arabia, they keep it medieval and go straight to beheading. In Iran, as I said, they have the cranes, and their use as a tool of execution (homosexuality is punishable by death, as it happens) is one reason Ahmadinejad wasn't exactly lying about the dearth of gays in his benighted land.

The other reason is less intuitive. Islamists' homicidal hatred of homosexuals is like posthumous baptisms and magic underpants for Mormons - it's baked into the cake. The more surprising fact is that Iran is actually hyper-liberal in at least one way - the government’s provision of sex change operations and recognition of gender self-ID. A few years back I spent a couple of months traveling in and (secretly) writing about this complex nation. Other than the totalitarianism and the chants of "death to the Great Satan" at Friday Prayers, Iran has its virtues. The food is good, the Persian history is cool, and the women are, well, often incredible (as recent events make undeniable). But progressivism isn’t typically its strong suit. So what gives?

I knew before I arrived that being outwardly gay in Iran was a literal death sentence. What I didn't know was that its leaders are so keen on making sure the Islamic Republic remains gayless, that they’re willing to adopt the most progressive of progressive overtures by offering (in reality, requiring) state-subsidized “gender reassignment surgery”, particularly for male homosexuals. When I learned about this seemingly odd practice from Iranians themselves, I almost didn't believe it, but it's true. The level of homophobia is such that the regime's leaders will go to any length to extinguish the country’s gay population. 

Much of this is either unknown or unimportant to Western progressives. I have even seen debates about the regional intentions of the Iranian regime in which apologists and “anti-imperialists” will defend Iran's human rights record based on this practice - how can they be as bad as the neocons in America are saying if they’re so "pro" trans? Well, no offence, but making common cause with trans activists wouldn't make me think something was less totalitarian. Interestingly, I once pitched an article to Out magazine about this anomaly, thinking it would be interesting, if not horrifying, to LGBT readers. I never did hear back, which might be because I'm a bad writer, but given the LGBT community's apologism vis-a-vis Islamism, and its own internal contradictions concerning the trans movement, something tells me there were other motives at play. 

Ideological struggles create strange bedfellows, and it should not be lost on us that the most progressive people in Western society are often advocating intervention in similar fashion to one of the world's most bigoted and backward regimes. This should have been (at the very least) a red flag that we needed to discuss the implications and contradictions where these issues are concerned. It’s more than a little disconcerting that medicine, following the lead of the most blinkered activists in society, is giving a hostage to fortune in this way. 

Physicians are of course fond of reciting the mantra, “first do no harm.” But like many phrases that roll off the tongue of the morally certain, even this most banal assertion can be misleading in today’s Orwellian world. Given that we now know that “silence is violence” - but looting and inner city children dying are not - we might at some point want to clarify what we mean by ‘harm.’ Similarly, if the true violence is keeping someone trapped in the "wrong body", then avoiding that “harm” might mean recommending (often gay and lesbian) gender dysphoric preteens for permanent and dangerous surgery. The Iranian regime seems to have thought it out. Did we?

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read, White coat sanctimonies

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