#105: "Iranian Dicks"

In the past, I have outlined many excellent ideas for positive social change; such as my idea “to boycott homophobic countries in eastern Europe and encourage all oppressed homosexuals, heterosexuals who like homosexuals and Right Said Fred to attempt a coup of Estonia and take it as their own”. Of course, there was obviously a good reason for my passionate stance.. something to do with Polish Teletubbies...somehow... But I even chose a national anthem for this gay republic.

Unfortunately my ideas, which include sexuality based, non-military coups, seldom come to fruition. However, I recently watched the documentary ‘Be Like Others’, by Tanaz Eshaghian, which motivated me to add to the list of issues If I Was A Gecko supports. So far I’m only supporting “the genetic improvement of the winged bean”. But now add to that, “the prevention of cruelty to homosexual Iranian penises”

The documentary examines the lives of various young men in Iran who are considering having a sex change operation. The director, who fled with her family from Iran as a child shortly after the 1979 revolution, first read about the huge numbers of sex change operations in a 2004 New York Times article. She was surprised that such an operation would be acceptable in a Muslim country. Apparently Iran can be a little bit conservative over certain things or something, so she decided it would make a considerably more interesting feature length documentary than her struggling project ’The Winged Bean: How it Will Feed the World’. So she returned to Iran for the first time to befriend some gays.

Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation in the world...except for Thailand..obviously,....otherwise that’d be silly. By some estimates, there are 150,000 Iranian transsexuals. The government provides up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance and a sex change is recognised on your birth certificate. The New York Times, along with newspapers such as The Independent and The Guardian wrote about the seemingly incongruousness of mass Iranian transsexualism, largely due to interviews with a long time activist for religious and legal recognition for transsexuals in Iran, Maryam Khatoon Molkara.

The articles were largely positive about the Iranian regimes decisions on transsexuals; “As Repression Eases...”, “a compassionate decision...”. However, the main focus of the articles was on the telling of, male to female transsexual, Maryam Khatoon Molkara’s boob related anecdote.

Molkara’s meeting with the first Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1983, was a turning point for Iran’s wannabe transsexuals. Before then, the new Iranian government, following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, classed transsexuals and transvestites with gays and lesbians, who were condemned by Islam and faced the punishment of lashing and possible death under Iranian law.

Although Ayatollah Khomeini had written that there is no religious restriction on corrective surgery, as far back as 1969, he didn’t pronounce a religious edict on the matter when he came to power. Molkara had been writing to Ayatollah Khomeini long before the revolution, to gain religious authorisation for her on going transformation. Following the revolution, she was fired from her job, forcedly injected with testosterone and institutionalised. Once released she lobbied various religious leaders, including Ayatollah Khomeini.

In 1983, Molkara, bearded and in a man's suit, approached the Ayatollah Khomeini’s compound. Armed security guards pounced and began beating her brutally. [RECAP: Molkara = Male to female transsexual, dressed as a man] They noticed she was wearing some kind of belt across her chest and feared she was a man carrying explosives. But when she removed it the only thing that went boom were her (hormone encouraged) boobies! Khomeini's brother intervened and, moved by her story, took her inside, eventually agreeing to introduce her to the supreme leader himself, Ayatollah Khomeini.

She met him covered in blood and fainted at first. Khomeini was confused about the injured bearded man with lovely tits and asked three of his trusted doctors in the room at the time, “what the difference was between hermaphrodites and transsexuals” [Actually true].

Having pleaded her case, with the use of her boobies, that she was a woman trapped in as man's body, Molkara left the Khomeini compound with a letter giving religious authorisation for her - and, by implication, others like her - to surgically change their gender. This original fatwa has since been reconfirmed by the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And lots of men in Iran got big boobies. THE END.

Well that was the end of Molkara’s boob related anecdote anyway. Obviously I’m going to go on about Iranian transsexuals a lot more...BECAUSE it’s not a happy ending children! Tanaz Eshaghian’s documentary showed that many transsexuals are coerced into having sex changes as the only religiously legitimate way to live in Iranian society if you’re homosexual, effeminate or penetrate men anally as a form of exotic and friendly massage like I do.

The religious cleric responsible for gender reassignment says “Islam has a cure for people suffering from this problem“. Furthermore, he claims the operation is no more a sin than “changing wheat to flour to bread”. “The discussion is fundamentally separate from a discussion regarding homosexuals. Absolutely not related. Homosexuals are doing something unnatural and against religion.” “We just remove camp blokes' cocks whilst pretending we’re in a bakery” - he almost said.

You cannot be in a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex in Iran or else you could be executed. You can’t appear to be gay in any way or you get attacked and whipped (not in a good way). So for many, a sex change is their only option to live in Iran. For leading Islamic clerics, it’s a sure-fire way to deal with the statistical inevitability of homosexuality and of preventing penetrative sex between males - as they either die or don’t have a penis. Many suffer depression following the operation. Many are shunned by their families and continue to be persecuted. In the film, 27-year-old Ali Askar, renamed Negar after her sex change operation, was disowned by her family, who “pray for her to die” and she now lives with other transsexuals and has had to work as a prostitute to make ends meet. Of course many regret being coerced into having the operation. This is all unfair! If I Was A Gecko supports the prevention of cruelty to homosexual Iranian penises!


OF THE DAY Is Away At The Moment, But Here Is A Picture Of What He Is Doing OF THE DAY - OTD is currently lost in the dark.


And that’s not all. I recently saw two homosexual Iranian teenagers being hanged on Newsnight. That is, I saw a clip of them being hanged, which was on Newsnight, of course. They don’t hang people on Newsnight.

Because on July 19, 2005 in Mashhad, northeast Iran, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, 16 and 18 years old respectively, were publicly hanged for charges related to homosexuality. The exact details surrounding their case are unknown. Reports from Iran have stated their involvement with the rape of a 13-year-old boy, which was the primary charge. But, with no details released as to the specifics of their charges, many people question whether any such case against them was anything more than an unsupported allegation, used to secure their execution for being lovers. If death wasn’t punishment enough, the two were also given 228 lashes each for drinking, disturbing the peace and theft.

Although there were calls for restraint, when gay activists claimed, as fact, they were hanged for being gay, the arguments against consensual gay sex being punishable by death remain. Violators are reportedly given a choice of four methods of execution: hanging, stoning, halving by sword or being dropped from the highest perch. I'm pretty sure they choose the method by picking a mystery gold envelope.

Furthermore, the defendants themselves were thought to be only 14 and 16 at the time of arrest and their execution was against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which Iran is a signatory to, which prohibit the execution of minors. This case followed that of Atefah Sahaaleh, a 16-year-old girl hanged for committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

Speaking at Columbia University in New York last year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated, “In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country”, “We do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who has told you that we have”. He’s a dick, obviously, but [Question You Must Answer In The Form Of A Comment:] who else do you think is a big dick?


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