A fatwa for transsexuals

[onceburned]

Facinating article just published at Salon.com - this is the same Iran that recently executed two young men for being gay.

One woman's courage in appealing to the late Ayatollah Khomeini has made Tehran the unlikely sex change capital of the world. <snip>

[Now] in contrast to almost everywhere else in the Muslim world, sex change operations are legal in Iran for anyone who can afford the minimum $3,500 cost and satisfy interviewers that he or she meets necessary psychological criteria. As a result, women who endured agonizing childhood and adolescent experiences as boys, and -- albeit in fewer numbers -- young men who reached sexual maturity as girls, are easy to find in Tehran. Iran has even become a magnet for patients from eastern European and Arab countries seeking to change their gender.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/28/iran_transsexuals/print.html