Iran clerics have no problem with men undergoing sex change
operations,
reports the Los Angeles Times:
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, gay male sex still carries the death penalty and lesbians are lashed, but hundreds of people are having their gender changed legally, bolstered by the blessings of members of the ruling Shiite clergy.
"Approval of gender changes doesn't mean approval of homosexuality. We're against homosexuality," says Mohammed Mahdi Kariminia, a cleric in the holy city of Qom and one of Iran's foremost proponents of using hormones and surgery to change sex. "But we have said that if homosexuals want to change their gender, this way is open to them."
Sadly, gay men are no doubt facing intense pressure to undergo
sex change/castrations. But one can see how, from the
fundamentalists' perspective, this actually affirms the stark
duality of gender that they need to uphold.