Does Islam as a religion affect or restrict people’s ideas towards gender issues? Does it make people feel embarrassed or deny who they are? What about transsexuals? Are they not the children of God also? The answer to all these questions is ‘yes’. Over the years with the growing bias and prejudice among Muslims, transsexuality has become a more controversial issue. Since religious parties are in the governing position, the attitudes of the governments affect people. Thus, the comparison of the approaches of Turkey and Iran to transsexuality in terms of governmental and social aspects will help people to better understand Islamic countries’ attitudes towards gender issues. In Islamic countries governmental approaches to the issues are deeply affected from religion. The governmental approaches of Islamic countries Iran, which is governed by theocracy, and Turkey, which is governed by democracy, to transsexuality have slight similarities. To begin with, Tait (2009) points out a really surprising fact that a fatwa is endorsed to confirm the sex change operations by the religious authorities of Iran. In addition to recognizing transsexuality, the government allocates funds to sex change operations.
On the other hand, in Iran homosexuality is punished by death penalty according to sharia laws, the holy laws of Islam. The number of the sex change operations has increased owing to this deterrent punishment (para.11-12).
The Essay on Social Issues People Men Women
GOLDIN A, OLGA ANALYZE THE WAYS IN WHICH ENLIGHTENMENT THOUGHT ADDRESSED RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE 18 TH CENTURY During the 18 th century, the Enlightenment addressed religious beliefs and social issues, which were controversial among all the people and were not accepted by the government. During the 18 th century the most talked about issues included the equality between women ...
Moreover, Bahreini (2008) asserts that ‘‘the permission of transsexuality and sex change operations is motivated by a goal that is more about assimilating gender atypical individuals into the heteronormative order than about broadening horizons for sex/gender possibilities’’ (p.4).
Secondly, the governmental approach of Turkey to transsexuality is slightly similar to Iran’s. Atamer(2005) states that according to Turkish Civil Code homosexuals have to agree to certain conditions as a prerequisite of undergoing the gender change operation which are being older than eighteen and single, having mental health and being lack of an inborn ability of having a child(p.66).
Furthermore, its aim is exterminating transsexuality by means of preventing transsexuals having children and putting an end to the defective gene flow through generations.
Islam, which is known as the religion of clemency, starts to degenerate and the clemency lessen day by day. Therefore, the social approach to any ‘difference’ becomes worse. There are similarities between the social attitudes of people to transsexuals in Iran and Turkey. First of all, in Iran transsexuals are treated as they were sexual objects, they subjected to torture, arrest and many insulting behaviour. Bahreini (2008) illustrates that Sayeh, a transwoman in her late twenties explains: I have been arrested three times and have been disrespected in the worst ways possible… When they arrest you, some of them want to do things [sexual] with you…They first try to scare and torture you psychologically by calling you a jerk, a dirty pig, a faggot, a carrier of AIDS and a thousand other things; they try to provoke you to do something so that they can form a complaint against you based on that action (p.8).
The Essay on Gender And Child Custody
Gender and Child Custody Within the fabric of our society their seems to be a ideology about gender and child custody. This ideology stems from the facts about who should be the legal guardian of their son or daughter. The stereotypical views of our culture would perceive that women are more suited for the task of child development leaving the father bound to support the child. This created such ...
Secondly, in Turkey the situation is not very different from Iran. Transsexuals subjected to ridicule and abuse in public.
They are perceived as amusement for lower class people and they are called ‘dönme’, an insulting word. Besides, when it comes to family confrontation, the family often does not accept the situation. In their article Polat, Yüksel, Dişçigil and Meteris(2005) states the reasons why the family acceptance is a hard step: The family, as a microcosm of society, largely reflects and reinforces these negative views because gender crossing poses a threat to the normatively sanctioned Turkish gender classification. The Turkish family structure attaches enormous social value to children, in particular to male children. The family “owns” the sexuality of its unmarried daughters and controls the sexual desires of its sons. Indeed, the family has a well developed gender hierarchy with codes of behaviour for its male and female members. For example, male children are expected to provide protection and material support to their parents in old age. Any deviation from these codes of behaviour, such as gender crossing, jeopardizes these codes of behaviour. Hence on discovering that their child is transgendered, parents often experience an “injury” to their honour and social status in society.’’(pp.383-384).
All in all, people who are responsible of interpreting the laws of Islam according to today’s conditions and informing public should be educated and chosen carefully in order to reduce the deviation of Islam in a bigoted way. On the contrary, it is not enough by itself. Rather than driven by the aim of terminating transsexuality, Islamic governments should be more open-minded. As a consequence, transsexuals can live in a society without the fear of being judged.
References
Atamer, Y.M.(2005).
The legal status of transsexuals in Turkey. International Journal of
Transgenderism, 8(1), 65-71. Doi:10.1300/J485v08n01_06
Bahreini, R.(2008).
From perversion to pathology: Discourses and practices of gender policing in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, 5(1), 1-49. Doi:10.2202/1554-4419.1152
Polat, A., Yüksel, S., Dişçigil, A., & Meteris, H.(2005).
Family attitudes toward transgendered people in Turkey. Int’l. J. Psychiatry in Medicine, 35(4), 383-393. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database. Tait, R. (2009, September 11).
The Essay on Children raised with Wealthy Families versus Children raised in Poor Families
Children who are brought up in families that do not have large amounts of money are better prepared to deal with the problems of adult life than children brought up by wealthy parents. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion? Families have different financial levels and some people think that this variety of the family budgets have an impact on children skills. I believe that ...
Iran set to allow first transsexual marriage . The guardian. Retrieved April 20, 2010 from www.guardian.co.uk
