Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T13:38:28.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Performing Trans in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Gender Transitions in Islamic Law, Theatre, and Film

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Emily O’Dell
Emily O’Dell*
Affiliation:
Yale Law School
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the wake of a string of sensationalist documentaries about transsexuality in Iran, Iranian theatre and film artists began crafting groundbreaking trans performances to educate audiences and depict characters living non-heteronormative lives without the translating influence of queer theory or identity politics. Investigating transsexual bodies as assembled by jurists in Iranian Shiʿa jurisprudence and by artists on stage and screen reveals the ways in which the transsexual body is constructed in Islamic legal discourse and represented in narrative and bodily form in the public imaginary in Iran. Representations of transsexuality in theatre and film highlight the role of the arts as a vehicle for social change, communal recognition, and self-cognition. In particular, performances of female-to-male gender transitions in theatre and film have expanded the boundaries of how gender presentation is translated onto Iranian stages, into Tehran coffeehouses, and onto global screens. These trans performances usher Iranian spectators into new forms of viewership and artistic consumption in their attempt to creatively represent transsexual bodies and narratives to increase tolerance towards transsexuals; further, they have ignited a conversation among artists and activists about the assemblage of transsexual bodies in artistic productions and the most effective narrative and emotional forms of catharsis to inspire change.

Keywords

Irangenderfilmtranssexualitytheatrelawreligionsexuality
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1-2: Special Section: Medicine and Public Health in Modern Iran: Historical and Sociological Perspectives , March 2020 , pp. 129 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Afary, Janet, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Arastou, Saman, “Be Who You Are Not.” http://www.avayedivanegan.com/?p=13 (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Arastou, Saman, Email interview with author. November 6, 2018.Google Scholar
Arastou, Saman, “You Can Be Auto.” http://www.avayedivanegan.com/?p=228 (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Arastou, Saman, Interview with Iran Theater. “Be Who You're Not Deals with Spread of Violence,” January 27, 2018. http://theater.ir/en/104459 (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Motamedian, Bahman, Khastegi (Tedium), 76 minutes, 2008.Google Scholar
Barford, Vanessa, “Iran’s ‘Diagnosed’ Transsexuals.” BBC, February 25, 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7259 (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Be Like Others. Directed by Tanaz Eshaghian. 2008.Google Scholar
Mohr, Daisy, and Kianfar, Negin, The Birthday, 63 minutes, 2006.Google Scholar
Dehghan, Saeed Kamali. “Iranian Film Shines Spotlight on Taboo Subject of Transsexuals.” The Guardian, November 2, 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/02/iranian-film-taboo-subject-transsexuals (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Fathi, Nazila, “As Repression Eases, More Iranians Change their Sex.” New York Times, August 2, 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/02/world/as-repression-eases-more-iranians-change-their-sex.html (accessed June 25, 2018).Google Scholar
Gelman, Annelyse, “Be The One Who You’re Not.” For DRAFF: Critics Panel, April 10, 2017. https://www.draff.net/be-the-one-who-yoursquore-not.html (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Haeri, Shahla, “Women, Religion and Political Agency.” In Contemporary Iran: Economy, Society, Politics, ed. Gheissari, Ali, 125–149. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Harrison, Frances, “Iran’s Sex Change Operations.” BBC, January 5, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4115535.stm (accessed June 25, 2018).Google Scholar
Just a Woman. Directed by Mitra Farahani. 2002.Google Scholar
Khomeini, Ruhollah, Tahrir al-wasilah. Najaf, Iraq: Matbaʿat al-Adab, 1967 [or 1968 (1387ah)].Google Scholar
Khomeini, Ruhollah, The Tahrir al-wasilah of Ayatullah ʿUzmā Imam Khomeini, trans. Bakhtiar, Laleh. Foreign Department of Bonyād Baʿthat, 1986.Google Scholar
Esmaeli, Kouross, Legacy of the Imam, 14 minutes, 2006.Google Scholar
Legacy of the Imam. Director: Kouross Esmaeli | Iran and USA | 2006 | 14 minutes.Google Scholar
McDowall, Angus, and Khan, Stephen. “The Ayatollah and the Transsexual.” Independent, November 25, 2004. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-ayatollah-and-the-transsexual-21867.html (accessed 1 February 2019).Google Scholar
Ahmadi, Mohammad, Nature's Humor, 2006.Google Scholar
Montazeri, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali, Islamopedia, 2010. http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/grand-ayatollah-hossein-ali-montazeri-permits-gender-reassignment-procedures (accessed January 2010).Google Scholar
Najmabadi, Afsaneh, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Najmabadi, Afsaneh, “Transing and Transpassing Across Sex: Gender Walls in Iran.” Women's Studies Quarterly 36, no. 3‒4 (2008): 2.Google Scholar
Najmabadi, Afsaneh, Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
“Play Brings Trans People into Public Eye in Iran.” Tehran Times, January 20, 2018. http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/420508/Play-brings-trans-people-into-public-eye-in-Iran (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Raziji, Abbas, Interview with the author. 29 June 2018.Google Scholar
“Saman Arastou: Theater only Medium for Transgender.” Persian Digest, February 14, 2014. http://www.persiadigest.com/Saman-Arastou-Theater-only-medium-for-transgender (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Saanei, Ayatollah Yusef. Islamopedia 2010. http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/fatwa-permissibility-sex-change-operations-grand-ayatollah-saanei (accessed January 2010).Google Scholar
Scheib, Ronnie, “Facing Mirrors,” September 6, 2011. https://variety.com/2011/film/reviews/facing-mirrors-1117945989 (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Seyf, Mehrdad, Interview with BBC World Service’s The Ticket, February 27, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pLGGYMcfSQ (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Shakerifar, Elhum, “Visual Representations of Iranian Transgenders.” Iranian Studies 44, no. 3 (2011): 327–339, DOI:10.1080/00210862.2011.556375.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shirazi, Ayatollah Makārem 2010a. Islamopedia. http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/ayatollah-makarem-shirazi-specifies-new-sexual-organs-must-work-sex-change-operation-be-permis (accessed January 2010).Google Scholar
Shirazi, Ayatollah Makārem 2010b. Islamopedia. http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/fatwa-permitting-sex-change-surgery-ayatollah-shirazi (accessed January 2010).Google Scholar
Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob, “Sex Change in Cairo: Gender and Islamic Law.” The Journal of the International Institute 2, no. 3 (Spring 1995). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.4750978.0002.302 (accessed June 12, 2018).Google Scholar
Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al Ifta. Leiden: Brill, 1997.Google Scholar
Stack, Megan K., “Changing Their Sexes in Iran.” Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2005.Google Scholar
Taerpour, Fereshteh, Interview posted on YouTube, September 28, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFILK5r-ogI (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Tait, Robert, “A Fatwa for Freedom.” The Guardian, July 27, 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jul/27/gayrights.iran (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Tait, Robert, “Sex Changes and a Draconian Legal Code: Gay Life in Iran.” The Guardian, September 25, 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/25/iran.roberttait (accessed June 12, 2018).Google Scholar
Eshaghian, Tanaz, Be Like Others, 74 minutes, 2008.Google Scholar
“Transgender Iranians Take to the Stage to Raise Awareness.” France24, September 19, 2016. http://observers.france24.com/en/20160919-transgender-iran-theatre-law-transsexual (accessed December 21, 2018).Google Scholar
Shayesteh, Zohreh, Inside Out, 39 minutes, 2006.Google Scholar