Explaining the apparent paradox, one Muslim cleric says that while homosexuality is explicitly outlawed in the Qur’an, sex-change operations are not. They are no more an affront to God’s will than, for example, turning wheat into flour and flour into bread. So while homosexuality is punishable by death, sex-change operations are presented as an acceptable alternative—as a way to live within a set of strict gender binaries, as a way to, well, live like others. The tragic aspect comes through in discussions with patients and their reluctant parents in the waiting room of Tehran’s pre-eminent sex-change surgeon, Dr. Bahram Mir Jalali, where it becomes clear that some feel pressured, not free, to become transsexuals. Asked if he would be preparing for surgery were he living outside Iran, one young man says, “No. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t touch God’s work.”
