{"id":19874,"date":"2018-10-16T00:03:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T22:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/?p=19874"},"modified":"2025-05-27T10:51:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T08:51:38","slug":"maryam-khatoon-molkara-transsexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/maryam-khatoon-molkara-transsexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryam Khatoon Molkara and Transsexuality in Shia Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maryam\u00a0Khatoon Molkara was born in the suburbs of Tehran as Fereydoon. She was tortured and bullied<\/strong> for her feminine behavior as a boy in the early days of her life. The harshest form of retaliation towards her identity came from her own mother. She moved to Tehran and started working in a saloon. Those were the days when Iran was ruled by the Shah.<\/p>\n

Maryam wanted a religious solution to her gender issue. In 1975 she started writing letters to Ayatollah Khomeini<\/strong>, who was living in exile in Iraq. She knew she was a woman, she knew she was living in the wrong body and she knew she could fix this. She went to Paris in 1978 to meet Ayatollah Khomeini in person (who was visiting France) as she couldn\u2019t travel to Iraq because of the travel ban for Iranians at the time. She wanted to make him aware of the concept of transgenderism and have his verdict on sex reassignment within Islam. But the journey was not fruitful as she couldn\u2019t meet him.<\/p>\n

Maryam was working in television as a man when Islamic revolution took place in Iran. She was immediately fired by authorities and was arrested for being feminine<\/strong>. While in police custody, she was forcibly injected with male hormones, as prescribed by a prison doctor. Maryam shouted, but no one listened to her. Maryam had links with religious clerics in Iran and a well-known cleric, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, came to bail her out as soon as he learned of what she was going through in prison.<\/p>\n

This incident made her stronger and convinced of her decision. Maryam wanted to undergo sex reassignment surgery<\/strong>, but she knew that it was by now no longer possible as Islamic revolution didn\u2019t contemplate this possibility. But she had hope, as the country was under Islamic Sharia and Imam Khomeini was now in Iran and he was the head of state.<\/p>\n

One fine morning, she crossed all barriers at Khomeini\u2019s residence in Tehran and reached inside his house. Holding the Quran in her hands, she shouted “I AM A WOMAN, I AM A WOMAN<\/em><\/strong>.” Security officials got confused by the band wrapped around her chest, which they thought was an explosive belt. She removed it to reveal her female breasts underneath. The female security staff in the house rushed towards her to cover her with a veil as soon as they saw her female chest exposed.<\/p>\n

She told her entire story to everyone in the room, all of her years of struggle. Ahmad, son of Ayatollah Khomeini, who was in the room listening to all this, was moved to tears. He took her to meet the Ayatollah in his compound. Ayatollah knew of Maryam as she had been trying to approach him for years. A team of government doctors was summoned and the issue was immediately discussed by experts<\/strong>. The discussion included the difference between hermaphrodites and transsexuals. Khomeini hadn\u2019t heard much about the various gender conditions until then.<\/p>\n

\"maryam

Ayatollah Ruhollah Mostafavi Mosavi Khomeini<\/p><\/div>\n

Maryam left Khomeini\u2019s house victoriously. She had a letter in her hand addressed to the Chief Prosecutor and the head of Medical Ethics giving a fatwa (a religious authorization)<\/strong> for her and for all those like her to have their gender surgically reassigned. That one daring step by Maryam changed the dynamics and made history in Shia Islam. The fatwa is available in Imam Khomeini\u2019s Tahrir al-Wasilah (Volume 4), a book written as a commentary on a traditional theological text, and as a guide for Shia Muslims.<\/p>\n

Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, another Iranian Muslim cleric, approved of sex reassignment surgery. Sex corrective surgery for the purpose of bringing out one\u2019s true gender is not only unproblematic for Islam, but wajib (mandatory)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, unnecessary and false sex change is impermissible. Hojatoleslam Kariminia, a mid-level Islamic cleric based in Iran, is in great favor of transgender rights. He suggests that the right of transsexuals to correct their gender is a basic human right<\/strong> and he is attempting to introduce transsexualism into the public discourse through his research and advocacy work and remove the stigma and insults attached with transgender persons.<\/p>\n

Maryam started her activism in Iran during the early days of the Islamic revolution. She became the reason why advanced level surgical treatment is now available for transsexuals in Iran. Thanks to her one brave step, she made the lives of thousands of transsexuals living in Iran far easier than what she had been through. Though the social stigma has not been wiped away completely even today, society is changing with time<\/strong> and the fatwa is playing an active role in bringing a revolution in transsexuality in Shia Islam.<\/p>\n

Maryam got married<\/strong> in a traditional Islamic way (nikah) to a government officer, Mohammad, in Tehran after her sex reassignment surgery in Bangkok, Thailand. She lived with her husband till her death in 2012. The desire many eastern women have to marry and live in her husband\u2019s house was fulfilled by Maryam.<\/p>\n

\"maryam

La tomba di Molkara \/ The grave of Molkara<\/p><\/div>\n

The fatwa, which now allows sex reassignment surgery to be performed with Iranian government support<\/strong>, is practiced religiously in Iran. It also allows a transgender person to change his or her documents within days, from birth certificates to school\/university documents. It also gives rights to transsexuals to marry, work with their desired gender and live according to their newly assigned gender. Implementation, however, has taken years and a lot still needs to be done. But what Maryam did for the Shia transsexual community is remarkable and will always be written in golden words in history.<\/p>\n

WAK<\/strong>
\nwith the contribution of Alex<\/strong>
\n\u00a92018 Il Grande Colibr\u00ec
\nphotos: public domain<\/a> and\u00a0Transe-gomnam<\/a> (CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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