Staying alive
Interview with an Iranian transgender

Arsham Parsi
Translated by Morteza
May 28, 2007
iranian.com

How would you like to introduce yourself?

My name on my ID is of no importance, but I'm known as Sayeh. I'm 26 years old and I'm a transsexual. I left Iran a year ago and I now live in Turkey. Could you please give me a tranquilizer please? I can't think clearly. I am angry, I'm confused.

Why are you angry?

I'm in a country which does not support me. It has attached the term 'refugee' on me. I neither know its language nor can understand its people and they can't understand me either. Being a trans here is similar to being a trans in Iran. Although its government might be free (democratic) but its people are the same sort of people (as in Iran). They do not care at all.

What is your problem at the moment?

I have a lot of problems. The day I got here, the Turkish police told me that I should not leave this place frequently because if people realize my problem they will beat me. Initially, I listened to their advice and did not go out. I did not have a job. I did not have a home. I suffered so much. Now they are asking me for a residency fee. Everything about Turkey is difficult. You are a refugee. Nobody supports you financially and you frequently need to go to the police and give signatures. You are not a citizen and you can't even make (official) complaints about anyone. I was beaten severely by some drunk Iranian men. I went to the police to file a complaint about them. I was told that we (the men and I) are all Iranians and if I file a complaint there will be headaches (complications) for all of us. I was threatened to death and was beaten but I couldn't complain about the incident. They told me that they will cut my throat.

The Iranian refugees did?

Yes. The police can not do anything to them because they are refugees here. They told me that they will cut my throat and kill me. I can't leave the house. I have financial problems. I don't have money to buy hormones. My body needs hormones. I don't have male hormones. When I get sick I can't go to the hospital. I don't have money to go to Ankara. I had problems finding a place to live and I didn't know where to sleep. Everyone says that it is not their problem. Then for what reason am I here? The Iranian government is very similar to you (the Turkish government). They restrict the places you can go. Even when you have your identification card on you, they still don't let you go to certain places. It is true that I'm a refugee but I need people/the society to understand me. Is it possible for one to not leave his/her living place just because she has been informed by the police that she might get beaten? A person needs to feel that there are people who might be willing to help her/him. There were certain constraints in Iran and there are some different constraints here. I believe that a fundamentalist or a Muslim country will never be able to deal with issues like this (transsexuality).

Do you have financial problems?

Severely. The first year I was ok as I did not pay my residency fee. Here for every six months one has to pay $400 to the police. But I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I have become very depressed because I don't have connections with anyone and I am alone. Iranians do not want to be in contact with us(trans) and they run away from us. It could be because they are ashamed of us as when they see us in the street they change route and go another way. If the Turks find out about our problem they will harm us and that might become a headache (introduce complications). Therefore, we need to try to disguise ourselves so that they don't notice our problem. My kind (other transsexuals) all have psychological problems, therefore we can't even tolerate each other. We all have financial problems and we are not supported. They tell me that I should ask my family to send me money. If I had had support from my family, what would I have been doing in your country? If my mom and dad would have helped me, or even if I had a boyfriend so that I could get some support from him, my situation would not have been such a disaster. Here you can't get any sex. You don't have an emotional relationship. You don't have family, you don't have any friends, no one understands you and you don't know their language. So that people don't realize my problem, I've asked the police more than a thousand times not to call me by my first name and I've asked them to use my last name instead. But they don't give a damn and in front of everyone they call me by my male name. At this moment, I don't know who I am and what I'm doing here. I am going to Canada but I don't know how the society is like in Canada. I don't know if I want to get the surgery or not. But the most important thing for me is to be able to leave this place alive.

Is the process of you migrating to Canada in its final stages?

Yes. It is mostly done. I have received my visa and I'm just waiting for my departure date.

Does this mean that you are not anticipating any other problems for your migration to Canada and you are just waiting for your departure?

Waiting. Why do you think I don't have any other problems? Do you know what this situation is similar to? This is a country where one has no other option but to wait. I wasn't like this when I arrived here. I'm now like a scared psychotic patient who has ran away and has made it to this country and now all she can do is wait. Leaving aside the difficulties of waiting, moving to another country, dealing with a new language, it is hard to find a place to live and manage to pay for water and electricity and on top of that pay the residency fee. I wouldn't have had any problems if I had any money and my life wouldn't have been like this. If I could have worked in my own country, then I could have worked here in Turkey. They ask me for more money, but when I can't go to work how can I give them more money. They would not give us (transsexuals) jobs in Iran. They would tell me to get a sex change and get a new identification card and do not tell anyone about this. And only after I get the new ID I can go and get a job. How can I say that I have the right to work when even so many normal people don't have jobs? I would've needed to get the surgery if I wanted to work. To hell with the cost of the operation I am not even sure if I want to get the operation at all. In a country where they call everyone a trans, why should I get the surgery? Doctors performing the operations in that country are so careless, for them performing the surgery is like cutting paper and not flesh. Left and right, on a daily bases, they perform sex change operations on people without even paying proper attention to each case and yet they are so proud that they are a country which allows people to have sex changes. They perform all these operations improperly and incomplete. Out of all the people they operate on, only a few remain healthy. How many of these patients do not become psychotic? How many do not commit suicide? How many can live a normal life after the operation? Most of them don't even get the chance of finding a companion. They are transsexuals and their past will always haunt them.

Are you saying that people who go through the sex change operation are considered females in the society?

No. For example if I decide to get the operation, it will only affect the parts of my body which are under my clothes. I might have a masculine face or they might indicate on my identification card that I have had a sex change. Leaving all these aside, wouldn't the person who wants to live with me become suspicious? Even if he does not become suspicious, wouldn't he ask why I don't get pregnant? If only one or two people know about my past, they will reveal the reason to him. Then he will ask about how I acquired the money for the operation? "Where did you, who are like this (a transsexual) and don't even have a family, got the money for the house?" He will then threaten me, how will I be able to escape from all these threats? What about when a member of the police force so easily attacks you like he is taking a terrorist in to custody? In the middle of the street, a member of the special forces of the police pushed me in to a black car and when I asked him why he is doing this he replied "shut up you jerk". I asked him why he called me a jerk. He said "What the hell are you doing here?" I said that I was returning from a doctors office in Mirdamad Ave. He said "Close your mouth you filthy trash". He called me words that people don't even use for calling terrorists. They threw papers at my face. They took me to a women's detention center, but when we got there the women started shouting "he is a trans". Then they took me to men's detention center and they all started making fun of me and making loud noises. Then I was taken to a cell. After two days of staying there, they finally had me sign papers to guarantee to them that I will not show up in public with the attire and appearance that I was in on the day of my arrest. I was wearing a simple shirt and pants on the day that I got arrested. Maybe the curve of breasts were noticeable a bit and maybe my hair was a tad long. But it wasn't like I was shouting in the middle of the street that hey people I'm a trans. I might look a little different from normal boys when wearing male clothing, but this difference is not as noticeable as they were saying. Back when I got arrested I was not able to wear female clothing; if I would have gotten arrested wearing women's attire and they would have asked me for my ID, then they would have thought that I was a criminal trying to disguise in those clothing. Imagine that you enter a public office wearing women's clothing and your identification card saying that you are a male. They would think that you are a terrorist and you are there to blow up something. If you are wearing men's clothing, because you'll look different they would not let you in at all.

I would like you to tell me about the life of a transsexual in Iran.

This feeling exists, but you have to explain it to everyone. Everyone is trying to elucidate/preach that this is not right as it's interfering with God. They will start ranting about how you are making a mistake as you are really a boy. A sick society which made you ill in the first place is now pointing at you and calling you sick. And after that, it will just leave you alone without giving you the help you need. Out of all these pressures that are applied, several consequences might emerge. You might run away from your home and family, which itself will result in to two possibilities. You either have to become a prostitute and the consequences of that are you getting stabbed, raped, becoming infected by Aids or consequences similar to these. The second possibility is that using the money that you get from prostitution, you will be able to get the sex operation sooner. One has a lot of problems being in this dual state. If you are a boy you will get in to trouble with the police because of having a girl look, and if you wore women's clothing, you will get in to trouble again. You will have problems getting an ID. You will have problems getting the society's acceptance. And because of all these reasons, whether you want it or not, you have to get the operation as fast as possible. In order to gather the money needed for the operation, you might need to perform all sort of sick and disgusting things. You quickly get the operation, and just then you realize whether you were a trans or not. Maybe you were gay and just had some feminine feelings. Maybe you just had the desire of wearing some lipstick. But they will attach the word trans to you, they will operate you and then after the operation, nothing.

Are you saying that there are people who are not transsexuals and get a sex change?

Yes. Out of the 100 transsexuals that I've seen, I can say with confidence that only 20 of them were real transsexuals and the rest either are gay and mistakenly believe they are trans, or they are trying to attract some pity by displaying themselves ill. Presenting themselves as women, they might find a boyfriend more easily and claiming that they are ill, they will get accepted more easily by the society.

We had a telephone conversation when I was in Toronto. During that conversation you gave me some statistics about a research that you had conducted on people who get the sex change operation but are not really transsexuals. Could you elaborate on that please?

Sure. There are only a small percentage of people who are actually transsexuals and get the operation. A significant number of people who get a sex change are gays, as you can not state in Iran that you are a man and want to be with another man even if your appearance is feminine. If you are known to be gay, you will get hanged. Therefore, most gays plea for societies acceptance by announcing themselves as transsexuals. Many of these people, for many different reasons become emotional and get the operation. But soon after they get the operation they'll regret it and cry for days for the mistake that they've done. I was visiting one of these people in the hospital. He told me, "if you can, flee Iran". I asked him why. As he was crying like a river he replied "I have committed a huge mistake. Why did I want to become a woman? I didn't even become a woman. I've become deficient and I would love to go back to my previous state". I was at the doctor's office once, and I met two transsexuals who were begging the doctor to operate them to go back to their pervious state.

I have an opinion about transsexuals. It is possible that a gay man due to the circumstances comes to the conclusion that the only way to be with another man is to become a woman. Therefore, he portraits himself as a woman and slowly his way of thinking and morality becomes feminine and it could also lead in to him getting a sex change. I believe that there are many gays that are forced by the society into believing that they are transsexuals. What do you think about this?

Some people are real transsexuals. Let me say this more clearly, they are sensitive on the word "lady". They like to be known as a woman and live their life as a woman. They like to have sexual and social relationships as a woman. But there is another group of people whom are under constant pressure from their parents telling them that they have been deviated from the righteous path. However, this is not what this group of people think, and they start analyzing themselves thinking that "no, I am a boy. So how can it be that I like other boys? But this is a sin! You are a prostitute! You have been deviated from the righteous path." Then they will start contemplating ways to obtain society's acceptance so that it would be OK for them to like other boys. "The only way is to attach something to myself, and that is to show myself as a sick person." When you are sick, people pity you and would say "Oh my god, this poor kid! This is the way god has created him. It is a genetic disease!" So, he will be forced to make himself known as a transsexual. They will ridicule these transsexuals so much, by calling them gays as if they are pointing at an infidel, that the person thinks to himself that this is not what he really is. But he cannot let go of his emotions, therefore he goes and sees a doctor. Getting a piece of paper from a doctor indicating that the patient is a transsexual is as easy as pie. But it is hard for homosexuals to ask for something like this from a doctor, because doctors fear the legal issues surrounding homosexuality. Whether you are a homosexual or a transsexual, most probably they will pronounce you a transsexual. If you want to prove that you are not a homosexual you'll be forced to get the sex change operation. You don't want to be forced to explain why you are attracted to your own sex, and the only way to avoid this is to get the operation. A lot of people become drug addicts after getting the operation, they become depressed, they commit suicide and there is no way to undo the operation. Neither the doctor or the parents or anybody else takes responsibility, as no one respects or values transsexuals.

Having a sex change operation is legal in Iran. What procedures are involved in getting this operation and who decides to have the operation?

I have completed the first step of the operation. Orchidectomy was performed on me and my testicles were removed. The sex operation can be divided in to two separate steps: the first step involves having your sex changed which comprises of changing your male genitals to female genitals. The second step is just a cosmetic surgery. But even the first step can be done gradually. If I take hormones without having an Orchidectomy done, there is a possibility of me getting cancer after a while. Therefore, I had the Orchidectomy done before starting to take hormones. This way my body does not have any male hormones and there will be no complications if I take female hormones. If you decide to get the operation, you have to go to a doctor and tell him/her about your situation and emotions. The doctor will refer you to a psychiatrist and after that the psychiatrist will write a letter and send you to a coroner.

Do psychiatrists easily refer patients to coroners or are there complications?

Some do and some don't. Some of these psychiatrists take advantage of the simpleness of their patients. A couple of years ago, one of my friends visited a psychiatrist. The doctor had told him that if he wants to prove that he has feminine emotions he has to have sex with him. This is not a common incident, but it happens ones in a while. They will refer you to coroners. The main office of coroners is located in a very bad neighborhood. I mean it's located in a very bad part of town and also when you enter this facility you will be called bad words such as "eva' kha'har" ("Oh sister"). They will call you names and you'll become the subject of their jokes and laughter. Even the doctors themselves engage in such acts. They will make a file for you there and then they will refer you to a psychotherapist.

Whomever I talk to, no matter if I'm talking to gays or transsexuals or even straights, they keep referring to the phrase "eva' khahar". In your opinion, why is the phrase "eva' kha'har" used and who does it refer to? Tell me your opinion about this phrase in general.

We have a male dominant society. Men in our society ought to have a rough and masculine face. When the society cannot accept homosexuality or transsexuality, it tries to belittle these groups by making them a subject of laughter. If you pay attention to movies, there are people who perform silly acts and they are always the subject of people's jokes and laughter and these people are called "eva' kha'ahar". This word still gets used for disrespecting gays. It is not a big deal and in my opinion in a male dominant society words like this are used very often. If a man has a delicate look the society is not able to tolerate him. It does not matter who you are, they will still disrespect and contempt you.

This might be a different case for gays and transsexuals. Gays do not consider themselves female as they are men who like to have relations with other men. But transsexuals are people with feminine feelings in a male body and they are in essence female. Gays become depressed and uncomfortable when called "eva' kha'ahar", is it the same with transsexuals?

Transsexuals might become much more depressed. You might not believe this, but if you call a transsexual worst things such as a whore it is not going to make him as depressed as telling him that you are a boy and "eva' kha'har". Anything that reminds us transsexuals of our problems bothers us. I am a transsexual, but I have a couple of friends, I have two legs and two eyes. I can walk like you, I can work, I can talk,... Everything that I have is very similar to yours except for a small problem. Now, if you see me walking in the street why do you have to call me an "eva' kha'ahar"? Why do you belittle me because of my problem? This is similar to when you see an anti-Semitic person belittle a Jew in Iran. It is not different at all.

Life for a transsexual in Iran is very hard and many of them because of the problems that happen to them flee the country. What are some of these problems?

Transsexuals are divided in to two groups. One group has the power to forget and he tries to forget all the misery that the society and his parents have made him go through. The other group does not have this power. For example, every night that I go to sleep I feel that all those incidents are happening to me again. I scream and wakeup in sweats. Rape, maybe someone would bother you today, push you or arrest you or call you bad names. But when these incidents happen often, when they start happening everyday and every hour, you will not have a life. Exactly the society which is ill itself tries to label you ill. We are not ill, it is the society which is ill as it's suffering from addiction, aids, suicide, arrests, murder...

About two years ago there was a report that two transsexuals were murdered in their own home. Do you know of anyone (transsexuals) who has been murdered by the government or even the people?

I knew someone. His name was Hana Salari. But I don't know who killed him. I've met him once, he was a friend of a friend.

Why was he murdered?

It is not important to people why he was murdered. They have a thousands answers to that. Some say that it was his boyfriend, or his parents or the government... it is not important to them to understand why he was murdered. My friend had Hana's picture on his mobile and he showed it to me. He told me "look at this picture, it's Hana". I said "I know what happened". He replied "he was at my house last week. They murdered him." He was shaking as he was telling me this, "I look at the picture and it gives me stress. I am scared. I heard that he was strangled to death". Maybe out of each 100 cases we find out about one. A lot of transsexuals might get killed, but no one understands that they were murdered because they were transsexuals.

As a homosexual/transsexual do you get beaten and tortured by people and/or the government?

Anyone who wears Basiji cloth and has a motorcycle can beat you and no one could question him for it, no one would ever check their IDs to make sure they are Basiji forces. Special forces of the police can also arrest you. Officially they don't have specific orders to arrest transsexuals. But I myself have been arrested three times and was disrespected in the worst ways possible. Even when they don't find a reason to arrest you, they will write a letter saying that you've been in contact with the insurgents and we arrested him naked in the middle of the street. How can one be naked in the middle of the street in the Islamic Republic? They will easily form and official file for you. When they arrest you, some them want to do things with you. Sometimes you let them and sometimes you don't. They will first try to scare you and torture you psychologically by calling you a jerk, a dirty pig, aids, carrier of all sort of diseases and a thousand other things to try to stimulate you to do something so that they can form a complaint against you based on that action. Even when you don't do anything they will take you to Mafased (the organization responsible for dealing with the society's mischiefs). They will keep you in Mafased for sometime. Then, they'll send you to court. The judge decides on your faith. He will either send you to prison or will change your destiny by letting you go free, as there is no law for dealing with such cases. As soon as they take you to court, every officer prepares himself for making fun of you. When they are dealing with a transsexual's case, it is as if all the officers go on a break. They deal with murderers and thieves all days long and when they see an attractive case they want to have some fun by belittling you. They can bother us as much as they want as we are not violent murderers. All these problems and miseries go away and what remains and tortures us are the psychological problems which are the result of these tortures. These psychological problems slowly transform us in to unnormal humans. I myself frequently just start crying without any reason, I have nightmares and wake up screaming. I've become very sensitive toward the people around me. All my memories follow me, I try to let go of them, but they still follow me. I can't stop thinking about old memories. All of a sudden I remember how a man dared to beat me without any reason. I remember four men beat me close to death in the middle of the street. They look liked Basijis, or people from Sazman-i Etelaat, or they could've been just normal people. I still don't know why they just started beating me in the middle of the street. Did they think that I was a member of the Mafia? They kept slamming their boots on to my head so hard that even when I think about it now sub subconsciously my head starts moving so that I can ditch their boots. I've become timid as they've beat me so much and raped me so easily.

When you get raped can't you complain to any organization about it? Laws have been put in to effect declaring transsexuality as a disease therefore transsexuals should have official immunity and protection. Do you know any transsexual who complained to a court?

Ha, you think it's that easy in Iran? In a country that where a woman does not have any social rights, and her blood money equals to ... when she doesn't have any rights, do you think they would give me, whom is not accepted by his family, nor the society nor the law nor religion nor anything else, any rights? I am a new subject for their laughter. I could be a good toy for a society which is hungry for sex. Who do I complain about? I went to the court to make a complain about someone. They were very rude to me. I went there because I was kidnapped by a taxi driver. He kidnapped me, stole my money and beat me. When he let me go, I called 110. It took them an hour and a half to get there. They asked me for my mobile number, but I did not have one. I told them that something bad had happened to me. When they got there he said "you dirty eva' kha'har. You called us and dragged us all the way here! Get lost you jerk". Then I started crying so that they would believe me. I shouted so much that they got forced to do some investigations. They then sent me to Mafased in Darband. In Mafased, they treated me like a murderer. They made me sit somewhere and not move until 2am. Then they told me that I have to get out. I kept telling them that I can't go any where at this time of the night. But they said that it was not their responsibility. I begged them to let me stay until the morning and sleep on floor. I begged so much because I was afraid to go outside. They finally let me spend the night there. After going to court they sent me to a coroner for verifying whether I was raped or not. At the end, the head of the police told me that I should give my consent. I asked him why should I do that. He said "this probably happened because of your own mischief, or you were prostituting yourself. You went and had sex with him but he did not pay you and that's why you are upset. You should give your consent". I cried so much and told him that I've been raped and they did so many bad things to me how can I give my consent. He kept saying "it was your own fault, this happened because of your own mischief". There was also someone else there who kept saying that I should give my consent else there would be a lot of complications and headaches for myself. He said that the guy who had raped me is a very dangerous and crazy person and one day he will get out of prison and he'll make a lot of troubles for me. Because of this reason I got scared and gave my consent and they let him go. I never again went to that neighborhood where I was raped. I even changed my house so that he wouldn't be able to find me. Later, I found out that the rapist had had a long criminal record and he was a drug dealer. Moreover, he had been declared as a dangerous citizen by the state. One of his relatives was a sheriff and that's why they didn't do anything to him.

You had a harsh life in Iran. You also have a harsh life here. How do you think your future looks like?

Think of me as this mobile phone. If you bang this phone 500 times to the ground, it will break or if doesn't break it will crack. Its wiring system will get screwed up and it will fail. I'm some what similar to a broken mobile right now. My nervous system and my soul are screwed up. My body is of no importance; the wounds on my body will heal, but not the ones on my soul.

Have you ever committed suicide?

Yes, I've committed suicide four times. It happens.

In a short time, you will move to Canada. What do you plan to do there?

I hope to get to Canada alive. My biggest dream is to have someone erase all my memories. I like to forget who I am and what nationality I belong to. When I forgot all my past, I would like to get the sex change operation. I would like to go to work and live a normal life like everyone else. I don't care about all the things that have happened to me in the past 26 years. But even if it is for one year, I would like to be for myself and live without needing to pretend to anyone that I'm a poor and helpless person and without needing to beg them not to belittle me. I don't want to feel the need to explain to people that I am not a dirty and inferior person. Like all of you, I am a human being. I have to explain these to my dad, to my mom. I don't want to do this any more. I like to live. I might be able to live like other people. I don't know what the world of normal people is like. They've made so many borders and I'm tired of always being pushed to the other side of them. I hope in Canada I wouldn't be forced to explain everything. Do you know what it is like in Iran? Imagine that a man who might not even know that a continent by the name of Africa exists, or might not even know that the earth revolves around the sun, he might even be illiterate, but he believes that he knows for fact that I'm a guilty and sinful person. Whenever a person like this sees me, he would say "get away from me you filthy person. The end of the world is coming!" Or as some of the coroners in that country believe, transsexuals' sex derive is so high that it has caused them to go insane, otherwise transsexuals are normal people. There is a Mafia like system in Iran. If you pluck your eyebrow and go to a doctor, he will pass you to a surgeon, the surgeon will pass you to a psychiatrist. You pay the psychiatrist and he gives you a letter saying that you are a transsexual. Then you go to a coroner, you pay him and he gives you the permission for the surgery. Immediately the doctor, whom I don't want to give his name, performs the surgery on you. After this you will not be of interest to anyone and they will leave you alone. This has become a business, a highly profitable business. They might have a few patients a week and some of these patients might not be transsexuals at all. I know this for a fact. Whenever you go to that doctor's office, there are many transsexuals waiting and he performs several surgeries a week. I knew one of those patients and he wasn't even a transsexual. But this doctor kept telling him that he is indeed a transsexual. He even had talked to his family and convinced them that their son needed the surgery. These doctors have such sweet tongues and they can convince people very easily. People who are rich don't necessarily need permission for the surgery. First they pay and go through the operation and then they will go after the legal issues. Initially, when I moved to Turkey I thought that this place is much better than Iran. But that was not the case. There are so many immigration problems, immigrants get crushed. I don't know how I'm going to deal with this in Canada. I like to get the surgery when I go to Canada, but I don't know how the situation is like there. I don't even know if I can get a job in that country or not. I don't know if they will give me permission to get the surgery. I don't know how to deal with my financial problems. I will be entering Canada crushed and ill. I have a high IQ and I did well in school. I could have entered the university. I could have become a lawyer or an ambassador. I could have become that very surgeon. But the society, with its ignorance, took all those opportunities away from me. It even took away my opportunity to be myself. I could have been myself, but right now I'm not. If I want to rebuild my life, I have to forget about my past.

Sometime ago I saw a documentary which was about transsexuals. Dr. Mir jalali indicates twice in that movie, that sex change operations do not even bring as much profit as nose jobs operations do and these operations only give them a lot of problems. Do you know about the costs of the operation?

The operation costs around 3 to 4 million tomans (about 5000 USD) and up. You have to go to the doctor's office, negotiate about the cost and get a discount just like you do at a grocery store. I once heard from a doctor who was part of the operation team that the cost of the sex change operation does not go more than 400,000 tomans (about 500 USD) and the rest of the money is pure profit for the doctors. The interesting thing is that a normal surgeon spends time with his/her patients, but these doctors don't. They just come in the operation room, cut and slice and put some flesh together. Like a baker who is rolling the dough, they don't really care how the result of the operation turns out, they only care about making more bread. It is possible that you might not get a complete operation if you'd ask for some discount.

In western countries, the patient usually goes through two years of counseling prior to the operation. Is it the same in Iran?

It used to be like that. Now you can buy everything with money. It's not easy for someone who does not even has a place to sleep, to pay for the high price of counseling sessions. When a normal person can hardly afford to pay for everyday expenses, how can we transsexuals possibly pay for these expenses plus the cost of hormones? I don't claim that I'm the Virgin Marry, but I was never a prostitute. Even people who do prostitution, how much money do you think they make? Do you think it's enough to pay for all these expenses? Enduring so much pain, they save 5,6 million tomans and they hand it to surgeons who have no idea what they are doing. They spend a year on a hospital bed, they might get well or they might not. Then they have to try to get a new ID. After that they have to start looking for jobs. A lot of the operations don't go well and their vaginas' might never close. They might never find a husband. Most of them go through so much misery, someone of them end up sleeping on the street, some run away, some become refugees, and some stay and get killed or commit suicide. That's it. It's worst than the life of Cosette in La Miserable. Cosette at least had an ID in which it was written "Cosette", but what about us? We have nothing!

Is it more common in Iran for females to get a sex change, or for males?

There are more males who want to become female. But a woman who wants to become a man is more easily accepted by the society and her family. In a male dominant society another man is added to the world and the society does not fear that. From our stand point it is easier for them too, because hormones effect them easier and in general it is harder for men to become feminine than for women to become masculine.

I've recently read a report from Iran claiming that a transsexual has been forced to have sex with his surgeon, because he did not have enough money to pay for the operation. The report claims that transsexuals are often raped by the doctors who are involved the process of their surgery. Have you hared anything about this?

This is very normal. It is as normal as saying that your doctor smokes, so people rarely even talk about it. It is very normal. The doctor knows that his patient is a transsexual, is getting a sex change and does not even have female genitals. He knows that that the patient is scared and does not have any family; therefore he will listen to the doctor who claims he wants to help him. Doctors deal with these sort of patients everyday and just because they are doctors that doesn't mean they are ethical. You can't complain about these cases to anyone, as the police forces themselves commit the same sort of acts. I don't get sad if a doctor asks his patient to have sex with him, if it is in form of a request and the patient has a choice. But when I'm depressed and I have problems and this doctor whom I desperately need and is in control of my future forces me to have sex with him, I think to myself how can someone possibly take advantage of another human being in this situation? What such doctor is doing is similar to a charitable person who asks a hungry person for sex in exchange for a loaf of bread.

What do you want to tell the people?

I want to tell anyone who meets me or reads about me that this is what my life is like. My life is not like a cigarette that you can smoke and then put away, as I will live and suffer in its ashes. We are (we live). The world has a forgettable mind, and I will be forgotten very quickly. I might get to Canada, or I might not. But I will never forget that all my rights were taken away from me and there are even no selected individuals who I can blame for this.

From now on, I want to build my life. Comment

Visit Iranian Queer Organization IRQO (formerly Persian Gay & Lesbian Organization -- PGLO).