MANAMA, Oct 31, 2009 (IPS) - Transsexuals in the Gulf call Bahraini lawyer Fawziya Janahi “guardian angel”. She is the Arab world’s only female lawyer who takes up cases on behalf of clients who want to change their sex.
Janahi’s clients want legal permission to undergo sex change operations. While the law is quite straightforward on this in Bahrain, the lawyer says it is more difficult in other countries in the region.
“But that wouldn’t stop me from helping transgendered trapped in their bodies,” she says. “I’m ready to challenge the odds!”
Janahi, 47, spoke with IPS about her unusual practice, her future and hopes of greater acceptance of transgendered/transsexuals in Gulf societies. Excerpts from the interview.
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For fifteen years, Fatima Abed Rabbo lived as a girl in Jabalya, Gaza. She wore girl’s clothing, and went to an all-girl’s school.
But shortly after turning 12, Fatima, now renamed Odai, recalls undergoing changes.
“I was normal. I used to be a girl and my name was Fatima. Before my father found out and the doctors checked me, I felt like a girl. But after I turned 12 years old, I began feeling more like a boy than a girl,” Odai Abed Rabbo told Reuters Television.
Majd Abed Rabbo, Odai’s father, said that following several medical tests, a hormonal imbalance was detected in Odai. The results showed that Odai had high levels of testosterone and needed a sex-change operation.
He is not the only transgendered person in his family. Odai’s cousin was once a female named, “Ola”. Now he is a male named, “Nader”.
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Cologne – A surgeon was ordered to pay 100,000 euros (141,500 dollars) in compensation on Wednesday for performing an operation converting a hermaphrodite into a man without consent more than 30 years ago.
Claimant Christiane V., who was born without defining gender characteristics, was 18 years old when her reproductive organs were surgically removed without prior information or consent.
The doctor had been found guilty of unlawful intervention at a previous trial in 2008, but a second trial was needed to set the level of compensation.
Christiane V. said she considered herself a woman, even though she was raised as a boy.
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By Daniel Williams
March 17 (Bloomberg) — To the Egyptian government, to her doctors, and especially to herself, Sally Mursi is a woman. To al-Azhar University, the most prestigious Islamic school in Egypt and the Middle East, she’s a man.
Twenty-one years ago, Mursi, 43, went through a sex-change operation as she was about to enter her fourth year at al-Azhar’s medical school, where classes are segregated by gender under Muslim traditions of piety. Al-Azhar officials expelled her, saying she couldn’t go to the men’s classes because she was impersonating a woman — or to the women’s classes because she was actually a man.
Since then, al-Azhar has refused to abide by repeated court orders to readmit Mursi, filing appeals. The contest has become a battle between civil law and religious fiat, reflecting conflicting attitudes about sexuality in an increasingly pious country.
For Mursi, the struggle is a singular and lonely quest for self-worth as she challenges a major Islamic institution and copes with public curiosity.
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By Liau Y-Sing
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – When Khartini Slamah first came out as a transsexual, he was a dutiful Muslim son by day and a prostitute by night, working on the streets of the Malaysian capital.
The option of sex change surgery was out of the question in this moderate Muslim country where Muslim transsexuals are banned from changing their gender and same sex relationships are a criminal offence.
“I tried to find a job but because of my sexuality I was turned down,” said the 44-year-old former prostitute who now works as an activist and counselor to other transsexuals.
Twenty years later, sex change surgery may be routine in some countries but it’s still banned by law in Malaysia — at least for Muslims. The ruling doesn’t apply to non-Muslims who make up about half of the estimated 30,000 transsexuals in Malaysia.
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Ali Askar had a sex change operation and is now called Negar
Be Like Others (also known as Transsexual in Iran) is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about transsexuals in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexuality while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Tehran clinic.
In 2008, Be Like Others was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and the Berlin International Film Festival where it won three Teddy Awards; the Amnesty International Film Prize – Special Mention, Reader Jury of the Siegessäule and the Jury Award. The film was shown on BBC television as Transsexual in Iran in February 2008. It is due to be screened at the Seattle International Film Festival in June 2008. Writing for Variety, Robert Koehler called Be Like Others “a powerful window into a once-hidden side of the country” and “a model of non-dogmatic filmmaking on a highly charged topic.”
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Sally Mursi
The case of a married woman called Sally Mursi is by far the most famous among Egyptians who have undergone a sex change. She was operated on 19 years ago. She and many other transsexuals feel humiliated, and think their human rights are being abused in Egypt. On their behalf, Sally has been engaged in an unprecedented decades-old legal battle against Al-Azhar University, which banned her from pursuing her studies at its Medical School for Girls. Wearing lots of make-up and a headscarf, Sally, a former student in Al-Azhar’s Medical School for Boys, defiantly refuses to give into the outrageous stance of Al-Azhar’s officials. Many transsexuals have asked Sally for advice before they too go under the knife.
Male transsexuals, who change their sex for different reasons, are confident that society would adopt a different attitude if girls changed their sex to become boys. Dr Samia Khedr, a professor of sociology, regretfully describes Egyptian society as male-dominated, with males being more pampered than females. According to deep-rooted traditions, prompted by agricultural and economic considerations, Egyptian families in rural areas favour their sons over their daughters; these families traditionally hold a special ceremony to mark the birth of a baby boy.
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Bahrani Lawyer Faouzia Janahi
February 12, 2008
Bahrani lawyer revealed receiving several calls from gulf and arab countries from people asking her to adopt their sex-change cases in their home countries’ courtss. The Lawyer, Faouzia Janahi, said that she is currently handling a case in Bahrain’s courts to reach granting of sex/identity change for a Bahrani girl named Zainab Rabei (33 year old) transitioned to male and named Hussein Rabei. Janahi had received another call from a Saudi girl (38 year old) asking her to take their case to prove she is male, and has refused to reveal about 2 more cases in two other gulf countries.
The Bahrani lawyer asserted that she had previously won a similar case for a girl who transitioned to a man in 2005. However, she requires medical reports from accredited hospitals before getting into the procedures of the case, and refuses to take requests from homosexuals of either gender.
Janahi (who’s been in the career for 9 years) takes pride in the fact that she in the first lawyer in the Arab world to win a case of this type, but she is not the first to take up such a case in court. She was preceded by her Kuwaiti colleague Adel Yehya who introduced 13 sex change cases for his clients, but the Kuwaiti courts denied all the cases after looking into it.
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Reuters – November 5, 2007 – 2:33PM
Hussein Rabei shows a photo of himself in traditional women’s wear sitting on a car with his brother before his sex change. Photo: Reuters
With his wrestler’s build and deep voice, it is hard to believe that Hussein Rabei could ever be mistaken for a woman, but in the Middle East cultural norms can blind people to the glaringly obvious.
Formerly known as Zaineb, 33-year-old Rabei was raised as a girl after being born with genitalia that more closely resembled a vagina than a penis. Arab culture and its rigid views on gender meant doctors ignored growing signs that Rabei may in fact be male, he said.
“When I married, my husband used to say, ‘It’s funny, but when I’m with you it feels like I’m with one of the guys, not my wife,”‘ said Rabei, who is now divorced.
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ANKARA (AFP) Jan 20, 2008
Turkish transsexual Sera Can puts make up on
A unique play in an Ankara theatre ended with a standing ovation this week as the little-known actors — transsexuals and gays raising their voice against discrimination — fought back their tears on stage.
Their play, “Pink And Grey,” put the spotlight on the plight of transsexuals in mainly Muslim Turkey, in the latest initiative of a fledgling but increasingly vocal movement for rights by a community long ostracized and often harassed.
Beaming with pride and excitement, the amateur stars, male-to-female transsexuals Derya Tunc and Sera Can, received congratulations in the boisterous backstage, taking a welcome respite from their actual jobs as sex workers.
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