#transsexual muslim | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lgbtqiamuslimpedia · 10 months

Text

Maryam Khatoon Molkara

DOB :1950

Known for :Iran's first Trans muslim woman who successfully change her gender legally.

Occupation :Trans Activist,Rights Advocate

Spouce :Mohammad

Religion :Islam

Gender :Woman

Sexuality :Straight

Ethnicity :Persian

Death :2012

Maryam Khatoon Molkara (also known as Maryam Khatoonpour Molkara) was a campaigner for trans rights in Iran, where she is widely recognized as a matriarch of the transgender community.She was later instrumental in obtaining a letter which acted as a Fatwa enabling sex reassignment surgery to exist as part of a legal framework.

Early life

Maryam Khatoon Molkara was born in 1950, she was the only child of her father's second of eight wives.Her father was a landowner. Maryam says she always preferred clothes, toys, & activities that were traditionally for girls.In her adolescence, Maryam went to parties dressed as a woman.She was often tortured & bullied for her feminine behavior. When she came out to her mother,her mother refused to accept Maryam's gender identity.This made her decide to take feminizing hormone, instead of immediately seeking out a gender affirming surgery.

Legal Recognition of Gender Identity in Iran

In 1975, Molkara traveled to London where she “learned about transsexuality & realized that she was not a passive homosexual. Molkara started to write letters to Shia Cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile in Iraq, asking for religious advice about being assigned the wrong gender at birth.In one of these letters, she said that her gender identity had been clear since she was two years old, as she used to apply chalk to her face to imitate putting on make-up. Khomeini had already written in 1963 that corrective surgeries for intersex people are not against Islamic law, & his answer was based on this existing idea rather than developing a new fatwa for transgender people.He suggested she live as a woman, which included dressing as one.

After this, she met with Farah Pahlavi, who gave her support towards Molkara and other transgender individuals wanting sex reassignment surgery.In 1978, she traveled to Paris, where Khomeini was then based, to try to make him aware about transgender rights.After the Islamic Revolution, Molkara started to face intense backlash due to her gender identity. She underwent arrests, and death threats. She was fired from her job at the Iranian National Radio and Television, forced to wear masculine clothing,injected with male hormones against her will, & detained in a psychiatric institution. Eventually she was released from jail because of her good contacts with religious leaders, such as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Molkara continued to campaign for her right to get gender-affirming surgery. In 1985, she confronted Khomeini in his home in North Tehran.She wore a man's suit, carried the Quran, and she tied shoes around her neck. This was a reference to the Ashura festival, and also indicated that she was looking for refuge.Maryam Khatoon Molkara was held back and beaten by homophobic security guards until Khomeini's brother Hassan Pasandide intervened.He took Molkara into his house, where she pleaded her case, yelling "I'm a woman, I'm a woman!" His security guards were suspicious about her chest, as they thought she could be carrying explosives.She revealed they were her breasts, as she developed them using hormone therapy.After listening her story, Ahmad Khomeini was touched & took Maryam to speak to his father, where he asked 3 of his doctors about the surgery in an attempt to make a well-informed decision.Khomeini then decided to permit sex reassignment surgery by issuing a fatwa.She left Khomeini’s house victoriously. She had a letter in her hand addressed to the Chief Prosecutor & the head of Medical Ethics giving a fatwa (a religious authorization) for her & for all those like her to have their gender surgically reassigned. That one daring step by Maryam changed the dynamics and made history in Shia Islam.

Maryam lobbied for the according medical knowledge & procedures to be implemented in Iran, and worked on helping other trans people have access to gender-affirmative surgeries.

However, Maryam completed her gender affirming surgery from Thailand in 1997, due to "unhappiness with procedures in her native country''.The Iranian govt paid for her surgery, and she was able to help establish government funding for many other trans individual's surgeries.

Trans Rights Adocacy

Maryam was a prominent advocate for trans rights & gender affirmative care.Maryam started her activism in Iran during the early days of the Islamic revolution.

In 2007, she founded and subsequently ran the Iranian Society to Support Individuals with Gender Identity Disorder (Persian: حمایت از بیماران مبتلا به اختلالات هویت جنسی ایران).This was the first state-approved transgender organization in Iran.Before this, she used her own property in Karaj to help other trans people receive legal advice & medical care, including post-op care.She continued her fight to advance the situation of transgender people in Iran.She also helped many incarcerated trans people in Iran.

Marriage

Maryam got married in a traditional Islamic way (nikah) to a government officer named Mohammad, in Tehran.

Death

Maryam Khatoon Molkara died in 2012, after suffering from a heart attack at the age of 62.

#queer muslim #transsexual muslim #trans muslim #trans arab #persian #transgender in Islamic #trans muslimah

49 notes · View notes

queeerbutch · 2 years

Text

there's always a lot of talk about how being gay or trans is a "sin." and a lot of people have reclaimed this, have joked about their "sin," have held it up yourself so it can't be held against you.

but to all of the religious queers, the ones trying to find or create a home in themselves where their identity and their religion don't contradict... i see you. i've been you, i am you, i love you.

your orientation is not a sin.

your gender is not a sin.

you are not sinful or wrong or bad just for being who you are.

your identity does not contradict your religion.

you are beautifully and wonderfully made, just as you are.

you are loved by your creator, just as you are.

nobody can take any of that away from you.

[ please do not tag or censor my use of the word queer. do not derail this post by talking about how much religion sucks. ]

#girl help there are transphobes on my facebook #religion #lgbtq #gay #lesbian #bisexual #asexual #nonbinary #transgender #transsexual #mogai #trans #pride month #lgbt christian #lgbt jews #lgbt muslim #im definitely missing things but i cant think of them #txt

4K notes · View notes

queerism1969 · 1 year

Text

Every religion has unreasonable rules, and every religion promotes terrorism against people they consider other.

So why do we only call out Islam for not being a peaceful religion?

Why a random Muslim guy or brown guy is responsible for the despicable things ISIS or AL QAEDA does?

Why a Muslim is responsible for someone they don't even know but white people aren't responsible for their forefathers or the mass shooting?

This hypocrisy affects all people who are minorities in their own country. One trans person doing bad things means every trans person will lose their social, economical, and political power. What kind of justice is that?

JUDGE PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR ACTIONS, NOT THEIR IDENTITY.

71 notes · View notes

meerawrites · 19 days

Note

Hi! I just saw your post here: https://www.tumblr.com/meerawrites/725101228254691328/hello-im-ameera-a-23-years-old-muslim-lesbian

i was curious where you found those flags or if you made them? They are absolutely stunning!!

@purelycryptic so glad you asked!

No. I didn't make them. I do use them... a lot. Mostly cause I feel like people love to erase not white queer people (I am bi, genderqueer, & brown) and Hijra, trans and people who partake in gender f.uckery from... all conversations and it can be disheartening at times.

Like Krishna was bi-polyamourous and the brown equivalent of a dandy in our religous books, it is not our fault H.indutva hate us/have no gaydar, and of course, Shiva in the text and Tridevi invented 'genderqueer' and 'transsexual'.

Do not quote me cause I don't recall of the top of my head. But some lovely brown queers on the bird app made it then it 'blew up.' /pos... on desiblr.

As for the Muslim one, I google searched it. Y'all are lovely!

This reference took merely a quick google scholar search so it is hilarious (derogatory) when white queers deny that we've always been here.

brown wlw playlist. <- is mine, I figured out the info about the people featured in the playlist by watching their interviews and paying attention to lyrics.

Also, Eid Mubarak to you two! I am not Muslim, I just thought it worth saying.

7 notes · View notes

uncanny-tranny · 11 months

Note

Transsexual Thursday!!! I hope you'll accept a trans Muslim submission. I wore the cutest outfit with my hijab and I just felt so happy--I truly felt genderless and I think I found a hijab style I love!!!! Mashallah I'm so happy

Mashallah!!! 🥰

#ask #anon #transsexual thursday #of COURSE muslims are welcome to submit anything!#and i hope you find acceptance and love no matter what you decide inshallah 💛💛

32 notes · View notes

godhasheardtruthfully · 5 months

Text

Ceasefire Forever by Sam-Amina Bailey

Gouache on paper. 12 in. X 9 in.

15 Jumada Al Awwal 1445 / 11-28-“23

Sam-Amina Bailey is a proud member of Transexuals for Peace & The Prohibition of slaying children because it’s profitable.

9 notes · View notes

bangladeshiqueermuslims · 1 month

Text

#bangladesh #bengali #queer #bangladeshi queer #hijra #gay #muslim #lgbtqia #rainbow #lgbt bd #wlw #mlm #sapphic #transgender #transsexual #somokami #somopremi #loveislove #bangladesh lgbtq

3 notes · View notes

homomenhommes · 2 months

Text

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … March 11

222 AD – Heliogabalus aka Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, Died (b. c.203 AD); Heliogabalis, also known as Elagabalus, the boy emperor of Rome, appears to have been a total madcap, if not completely mad. His great love of swishing ceremony can only be suggested in the space available here.

Since even madcap Gay Roman emperors were expected to produce an heir, a suitable bride was chosen for him, and he went through with the motions of consummation, finding it all rather futile. But he was impressed with the ceremony itself and later went through it twice in one night, choosing as his "husband" a well-hung charioteer named Gorianus, and as his "wife" a boy named Hierocles. His wedding night with both was consummated in full public view. The Augustan History claims that he also married a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna, in a public ceremony at Rome. He lavished favours on courtiers popularly assumed to have been his homosexual lovers.

Cassius Dio reported Elagabalus would paint his eyes, epilate his hair and wear wigs before prostituting himself in taverns and brothels, and even the imperial palace:

Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and there committed his indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by.

Herodian commented that Elagabalus pampered his natural good looks by wearing too much make-up. He was described as having been "delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles" and was said to have offered vast sums of money to the physician who could equip him with female genitalia. Subsequently, Elagabalus has often been characterized by modern writers as transgender, most likely transsexual.

He had the makings of a great theatrical producer and virtually invented the casting call by sending out his agents to round up for audition the men with the largest penises in the Roman empire. Eventually his enemies dispatched him with a sword up his bum and dumped his body in the sewer. He was just 18.

1544 – Italian poet Torquato Tasso was born on this date (d. 1595). Best known for his poem La Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) (1580), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. He died a few days before he was due to be crowned as the "king of poets" by the Pope. Until the beginning of the 19th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.

In the autumn of 1576 Tasso quarrelled with a Ferrarese gentleman, Maddalo, who had talked too freely about a same-sex love affair; the same year he wrote a letter to his homosexual friend Luca Scalabrino dealing with his own love for a 21-year-old young man Orazio Ariosto.

His poems barely hint at his homosexuality but his letters written to one Luca Scalabrino are very plain about his love of men. Here's a taste from the translated letters by Jill Claretta Robbins in the Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature:"You Lordship, in your last letter you ask forgiveness of me for not having revealed your sexual desire for me; and in your other ones that you wrote to me before, you have always shown that you believe that I am scornful of you, because you have not revealed to me this carnal desire of yours, and you express a very good reason for your secrecy and silence used with me....speak no longer of these things....In sum, I am all yours."

He suffered from what was most-likely schizophrenia, and spent several years in a madhouse. He died at age 51, having created his best work before he was 30.

1778 – Lt. Gotthold Enslin is the first recorded U.S. soldier to be dismissed for homosexuality.

1938 – Hans-Joachim Müller, born in Bitterfeld, Germany, is a German historian who specializes in the academic analysis of the persecution of homosexual men during the Nazi era.

Little is known about Müller's career. In 1959 he moved to West Berlin, studied in the Federal Republic and returned to West Berlin with the "teaching qualification for the intermediate level".

Later he belonged to the "Homosexuality Discussion Group" of the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg , in which persecution under National Socialism, not only of homosexuals, was an important topic.

Since 1984 he has been committed to the recognition of homosexual men as victims of National Socialism. During this time he began researching the history of gay men in sub-camp brickworks .He made his long-term research on the history of the previously taboo group of victims of homosexual men in Sachsenhausen concentration camp public for the first time in 1992.

He was one of the initiators of the first memorial event for homosexual prisoners at the Sachsenhausen Memorial. Joachim Müller worked at the Schwules Museum in Berlin and was a member of the international advisory board of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation from 1993 to 2001 . At the suggestion of the Foundation, he was awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services on April 5, 2013.

1963 – David LaChapelle is a photographer and director who works in the fields of fashion, advertising, and fine art photography, and is noted for his surreal and often humorous style.

David LaChapelle was born in Fairfield, Connecticut and lived there until he was nine years old. Then he moved to North Carolina with his family, where they lived until he was fourteen. He was bullied in his North Carolina school for being gay. When he was 15 years old, he ran away from home to become a busboy at Studio 54 in New York City. Eventually he returned to North Carolina to enroll in the North Carolina School of Arts.When LaChapelle was 17 years old, he met Andy Warhol, who offered him his first job as a photographer at Interview magazine. Warhol reportedly told LaChapelle "Do whatever you want. Just make sure everybody looks good." His photographs of celebrities in Interview garnered positive attention, and before long he was shooting for a variety of top editorial publications. LaChapelle's friends during this period included Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

LaChapelle has four published books of his photographs, Heaven to Hell and Artists and Prostitutes (2006), LaChapelle Land (1996) and Hotel LaChapelle (1999 featuring his vivid and sometimes bizarre portraits.

"Kissing Sailors" - Diesel Ad

In 1995 David LaChapelle shot the famous 'kissing sailors' advertisement for Diesel. It was staged at the peace celebration of World War II and became one of the first public advertisements showing a homosexual couple kissing. Much of its controversy was due it being published at height of the Don't ask, Don't tell debates in USA, which had led to the U.S. Government to bar openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. On a CNN interview LaChapelle admitted to being a gay escort at the age of 18.

LaChappele's gay "Last Supper"

LaChapelle directed singer Elton John's show, The Red Piano at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace, which premiered in 2004. The show features extensive use of video technology on an LED screen backing the show that, when built, was promoted as the largest and brightest of all time. Several of John's songs during the performance are accompanied by short films by LaChapelle.

He has directed advertisements for major stores. In 2006 he directed 'Romeo and Juliet', a 5 minute long commercial for H&M's new denim brand and 'Tis the Season to be Gorgeous', a humorous Christmas commercial for UK retailer Boots showing very glamourous self-indulgent women doing relatively mundane Christmas tasks. Also in the UK, he directed the surreal Lost trailers for Channel 4, which show the cast dancing in 1920s costume amongst the burning wreckage on the beach.

His directing work includes music videos for many artists. In 2006 LaChapelle was presented with the GLAAD Vito Russo Award for outstanding contributions toward eliminating homophobia

Then in 2006, the already established LaChapelle abruptly quit the scene. He moved to a "...very isolated part of Hawaii in this forest. It's off the grid, bio-diesel cars, solar-powered, growing our own food, completely sustainable. I thought 'OK, I'm a farmer now.'" LaChapelle's change in path eventually brought him back to his roots. While in Hawaii, a longstanding colleague invited him to shoot for a gallery, which he hadn't done since his days as a fledgling photographer in New York. "I was really shocked", LaChapelle recalled. "I'm so known as a commercial artist, a big name as a fashion and celebrity photographer, I didn't think a gallery will take me seriously. It's like being reborn; it's like rebirth; it's like starting over. It's back to where I started, where I very first started in galleries when I was a kid. It's just come full circle."

1967 – Today is the birthday of Scottish singer, actor, and activist John Barrowman. Best known for his role as Captain Jack Harkness in the science fiction series Doctor Who and Torchwood. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Barrowman and his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was nine. Growing up in the state of Illinois, his high school teachers encouraged his love for music and theatre and he studied performing arts at the United States International University in San Diego before visiting the United Kingdom and landing the role of Billy Crocker in Cole Porter's Anything Goes in London's West End.

In addition to appearing in several films and television series, Barrowman has featured on more than a dozen musical theatre recordings including cover tunes found on the certified gold album Another Side (2007), Music Music Music (2008), the second Top 40 album by Barrowman to reach the UK albums and singles charts, and his self-titled release John Barrowman (2010), the highest chart rating of any of Barrowman's albums to date.

Barrowman met his partner Scott Gill in 1993 and in 2005 they registered as civil partners under British law. They do not call their relationship a marriage: "We're just going to sign the civil register. We're not going to have any ceremony because I'm not a supporter of the word marriage for a Gay partnership." Barrowman explained later: "Why would I want a 'marriage' from a belief system that hates me?" A small ceremony was held in Cardiff with friends and family, with the cast of Torchwood and executive producer Russell T Davies as guests. The pair were legally married in the state of California on 2 July 2013, following the United States Supreme Court's decision to deny an appeal to overturning California Proposition 8 in Hollingsworth v. Perry.

In 2009, Barrowman published I Am What I Am, his second memoir detailing his recent television work and musings on fame. In the book, Barrowman reveals that when he was just beginning his acting career, a Gay producer told Barrowman that he should try to pretend to be heterosexual in order to be successful. Barrowman was offended by the incident, and it made him more aware of the importance of his role as a Gay public figure: "One of my explicit missions as an entertainer is to work to create a world where no one will ever make a statement like this producer did to me to anyone who's Gay."

To this end, Barrowman is active in his community supporting the issues that matter to him most. He worked with Stonewall, a Gay rights organization in the UK, on the "Education for All" campaign against homophobia in the schools. In April 2008, the group placed posters on 600 billboards that read, "Some people are Gay. Get over it!" Barrowman contributed his support to the project asking people to join him and "Help exterminate homophobia. Be bold. Be brave. Be a buddy, not a bully." In the same month, Barrowman spoke at the Oxford Union about his career, the entertainment industry, and gay rights issues. The event was filmed for the BBC program The Making Of Me, in an episode exploring the science of homosexuality

In 1998, Barrowman was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and in 2006 he was voted Stonewall's "Entertainer of the Year."

1978 – Christopher Rice, American author, born; an American author. Rice has written six best-selling novels: A Density of Souls, The Snow Garden, Light Before Day, Blind Fall, The Moonlit Earth, The Heavens Rise, and his latest book, The Vines, which was published in 2014.. His parents are Anne Rice, who died recently. and the late poet Stan Rice; his aunt, Alice Borchardt, is a noted writer.

Rice is gay; when asked in 2002 about "being pegged a 'gay writer'", he replied:"That's not what I do. I might be more open to that label if I hadn't introduced ensemble casts of characters. Granted, " A Density of Souls" is as close to a gay book as you can get. It revolves around a character's homosexuality and others are described in terms of their reaction to the one character's sexuality. In that sense it's at the core of the book. "The Snow Garden" is about identity. With this book, I'm trying to shrug off the term "gay" author."

Nonetheless, Rice is proud of his large following in the gay community, explaining "it was incredibly rewarding when I got a huge positive response from the character Stephen in "The Density of Souls". More than a thousand young gay men contacted me and said that I captured what it was like for them going through those years. That means everything to me." Rice also writes a regular feature for The Advocate called "Coastal Disturbances," in which he discusses various topics and he is currently the President of the Board of the Lambda Literary Foundation.

Christopher Rice Near-naked Selfie

In 2012, Rice launched a streaming Internet radio show called The Dinner Party Show. Eric Shaw Quinn, his partner and co-host, was known for having ghost written two books by celebrity Pamela Anderson and a 1992 novel about gay adoption called Say Uncle. The show describes itself as "the Internet's first live comedy variety show" and became known for its hard-hitting satire. After a year on the air, the show dropped its run time to one hour and focused on celebrity interviews and scripted specials. Guests have included Patricia Cornwell, Dan Savage, transgender activist Chaz Bono and Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin.

In 2013, Rice made his first entry into the supernatural thriller genre with The Heavens Rise. It was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel but lost to Dr. Sleep by Stephen King.

In 2014, Rice announced through his social media channels that he was scheduled to publish several works of erotic romance. The first of them, The Flame, was published in November 2014 as part of the 1,001 Dark Nights series.

He is now married to fellow actor/dancer Clay Thomson, and goes by the name Chris Rice-Thomson.

2010 – The direct action group GetEqual has gained attention as a result of its bold action, including civil disobedience, on behalf of the struggle for equal rights.

The organization was founded on March 11, 2010 by young activists Robin McGehee and Kip Williams. It was established to continue the message of anger and frustration presented at the National Equality March of October 11, 2009.

The National Equality March was born out of frustration with the loss of referenda on same-sex marriage and other rights; frustration with the alleged co-opting of the gay rights movement by the Democratic Party; and frustration with the failure of President Obama to fulfill the promises he made in his 2008 campaign for the presidency.

The march was called by veteran activists Cleve Jones and David Mixner, but those who responded to the call were primarily young people who had been angered by the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

Their disappointment with the loss of the campaign against Proposition 8 was compounded by their disillusionment with the Obama administration's failure to end the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy, to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The march attracted some 250,000 participants and featured speeches by such new activists as Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, actress Cynthia Nixon, DADT protester Lt. Dan Choi, and pop singer Lady Gaga, as well as Jones, Mixner, and civil rights icon Julian Bond.

GetEqual was founded in order to fulfill this need for assertiveness in the fight. Its mission is to empower the glbtq community and its allies "to take bold action to demand full legal and social equality, and to hold accountable those who stand in the way."

GetEqual uses the tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience of the 1960s civil rights and anti-war movements and those utilized by ACT-UP in the 1980s: sit-ins, pickets, disruptions, and a great deal of political theater.

The organization has sponsored actions that range from sit-ins in former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's office, disrupting traffic in Las Vegas and New York City, picketing the Ugandan embassy in Washington, D. C., heckling President Obama at fundraisers, to "glittering" politicians such as Republican Presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann and, most dramatically, to chaining protesters to the fence in front of the White House.

It was the direct actions on behalf of the repeal of DADT that first brought GetEqual to national attention, especially the arrests of McGehee, Lt. Dan Choi, Captain Jim Pietrangelo, and others who chained themselves to the White House fence on several occasions, most notably in November 2010 when it appeared that the long-sought repeal of DADT would fail.

Although GetEqual has been criticized by establishment figures for its tactics—Congressman Barney Frank called them "tacky" and counterproductive—it is almost certain that DADT would not have been repealed in 2010 without the pressure applied by GetEqual through its demonstrations and civil disobedience.

20 notes · View notes

adham10 · 3 months

Note

Good evening Mr. Adham, I am an Italian crossdresser (we crossdressers define ourselves as feminine in Italy), for a few months, on many social networks, I have seen posts about the forced feminization of white men, to transform them into devout Muslim women. I specify that I understand that it is only fetishism, although the idea is very exciting, and also inviting. I wonder; How does the Islamic religion deal with the topic of transsexualism and cross-dressing? I ask out of pure curiosity, until now no one has been able to give me a precise explanation. I apologize if the concept is not clear, but I use google translate.

A transgender person is considered effeminate in Islam and is treated on this basis. He is neither male nor female, but rather effeminate

21 notes · View notes

hadesoftheladies · 11 months

Text

So I’ve been working on an epic fantasy series for the past four years, and this JK Rowling thing has honestly made it real for me.

I’m trying to break into a male/white-dominated genre as a black, feminist woman. Whatever few advantages I do have (my voice, perspective and style being unique as an East African for example, or getting special spotlight from liberals who want to “celebrate poc authors” just because they’re poc) are thrown into complete uncertainty because of my beliefs.

For one, I’m a radical feminist. So I’ve already pissed off white liberals and white conservatives, which, let’s be honest, are the largest contributors and consumers to and in the fantasy sphere. Looking at what’s happening to Rowling and even Chimamamanda, I have no confidence people will be normal about my beliefs. For example, everytime I criticize gender, even online, white liberals accuse me of being pro-colonialism and imperialism, despite me literally growing up in a neocolonial state, having a national independence the same age as my dad, and having grandmothers and grandfathers who were slaves, and the children of people thrown into concentration camps. I’m talked over by white liberals and the moment they can successfully label me a terf, I’m successfully censored as a small artist and critic of oppressive systems. They are so willing to put down pocs that don’t agree with every little thought because their anti-racism has been solely performative.

And I am a feminist, which is high on the list of “most likely to piss off white man.” The increase of anti-woman propaganda, the increase of violence in that propaganda, the virtual and social “witch-hunting and burning”, the insane vitriol spewing from the mouths of men who only wanted a socially acceptable target to spill all their hate on: Brie Larson, Amber Heard, Joanne Rowling, and all sorts of female artists and professionals.

And what about my gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual characters and complex egalitarian/matriarchal societies? My books would be banned by my own government to the jubilation and relief of its majority Christian and Muslim population. In East Africa, homophobia is on the up and up. So what I’m looking at is virtually no support.

Unless I keep quiet about everything I believe about the world and myself. But how do you do that? How do you tell yourself “I’ll set aside the very urgent activism that needs to be done for the sake of profit?” How do you feign silence on the oppressed communities and the mistreatment of their humanity? For profit? It would be like cutting off my arm.

But I can’t not make my art. And I can’t not give it. And I can’t not live my life according to what I believe. I am passionate about justice and social change as I am passionate about my craft. How can I give either of them up?

Anyway, I’m gonna do it. Of course. Sales be damned. I doubt I’ll go with a pseudonym, because my books are mine, and my ethnic name is a rarity and victory in itself in the genre. I can’t give that up. I’ll have to be strategic but I have to live my life independent of the world’s regression. How else am I supposed to create a sanctuary for myself and other’s like me? I cannot wait for oppressors to grow a conscience.

Nevertheless, I’m gonna have a lot of banned books and in just my 20s! The amount of censorship will render me a literature outlaw all over the world! :)))) If I ever get a Wikipedia page, it’s going to be hella exciting and one helluva cautionary tale.

55 notes · View notes

irishabdullah · 3 months

Text

You, broke: synthesis of transsexualism within islam means that any feminine-presenting person can wear hijab while any masculine-presenting person is not obligated

Me, woke: all muslims regardless of gender or presentation have an obligation of equal degrees of modesty. now put on the veil gay boy

#this is only vaguely a joke but i have already stumbled upon the muslim force-fem fetishists on this webbed site so who is truly correct?

13 notes · View notes

lgbtqiamuslimpedia · 11 months

Text

Mukhannath

Mukhannath/مخنثون (plural: Mukhannathun) was a gender & sexual-diverse community of Pre-Islamic & Classical Islamic Societies. Transgender & gender variant identities & practices are diverse and vary across different cultures and societies, including within Muslim communities. In Classical Arabia, these people were refer to as 1.)Effeminate men, 2.) people of ambiguous sexual characteristics and gender non-confirmity, who appeared as more feminine, 3.) who socially had roles typically played by women. There is no monolithic interpretation or understanding of gender identity or expression within Islam, as the religion encompasses a wide range of beliefs and cultural contexts. The existence of mukhannathun has been acknowledged in many historical islamic texts, and their status within Islamic society has been subject to varying interpretations.

Etymology

According to the lexicographers, the term mukhannath derived from the verb Kha-na-tha in the first form means to fold back the mouth of a waterskin for drinking. Derived term develop the basic idea of bending or folding in the direction of pliability,suppleness,languidness,tenderness& delicacy.

According to 9th century Arabic scholar, philologist Abn Ubayd mukhannathun were so called on their account of effeminacy (takassur, elsewhere usually paired with tathanni,suppleness).[citation needed]

Later lexicographers define the term mukhannath as a man who resembles or imitates as woman in the languidness of his limbs or the softness of his voice.This definition rose to prominence among Islamic scholars until medieval times, when the term became associated with passive homosexuality.

While the term "Mukhannath al-Jins" has been used to refer to individuals who do not conform to traditional gender norms associated with their assigned sex.

History

Pre-Islamic Arab Society:

Mukhannathun's gender expression & existence were much tolerated in Pre-Islamic Arab world.Mukhannathun from the city of Medina (Saudi Arabia), are frequently mentioned in the hadith literature & in the works of many Early Arabic and Islamic writers.Mukhannaths were used as domestic worker,domestic helper,hairdresser in the early days of Islam.Mukhannath were allowed to access in both male & female quarters.Al-'Ayni quotes from al-Tabarani that in the days of the Prophet Muhammad,the mukhannathun spoke languidly,dyed their hands and feet (with henna), but were not accused of immoral acts (fahisha).

In the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates, various mukhannathun of Medina established themselves as celebrated entertainers,artists.One particularly prominent mukhannath, Abū ʿAbd al-Munʿim ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Dhāʾib, who had the Arabic name Ṭuwais ("Little Peacock"), was born in Medina on the day Prophet Muhammad died (8 June 632).

Ṭuwais is described as the first mukhannath person to perform "perfect singing" characterized by definitive rhythmic patterns in Medina.He was also known for his sharp wit and his skill with the tambourine (which had previously been associated only with female musicians).No sources describe his sexuality as immoral or imply that he was attracted to men.But it is reported that he was married with a woman.

While Ṭuwais is typically described as the leading mukhannath musician of Medina during his lifetime.Another Mukhannath who was known by the name al-Dalāl ("the Coquettish") is mentioned as one of Ṭuwais's favorite pupils.He is portrayed as a witty but sometimes crude man who "loved women," but did not have sex with them.Unlike Ṭuwais, some tales involving al-Dalāl do suggest that he was attracted to men.Furthermore Ṭuwais and other mukhannathun musicians formed an intermediary stage in the social class most associated with musical performance: women in pre-Islamic Arabia, mukhannathun in the Rashidun and early Umayyad caliphates, and mainly non-mukhannath men in later time periods.

In the early Umayyad period, Mukhannathun enjoyed an exceptional visibility and prestige in Medina & Mecca.Religious persecution of mukhannathun first started at the reigns of Caliph Marwan I. The governor of Mecca serving under al-Walīd I “issued a proclamation against the mukhannathun”, in addition to other entertainers. Two mukhannath musicians named Ibn Surayj and al-Gharīḍ are specifically referred to as being impacted by this proclamation. Mukhannath al-Gharīḍ fled to Yemen and never came back to Saudi Arabia.The most severe instance of persecution is typically dated to the time of al-Walīd I's brother and successor Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, (7th caliph of the Umayyad caliphate).According to several variants of this story, the caliph Sulayman ordered the full castration of the mukhannathun of Medina.Some versions of the tale say that all of them were forcefully undergo the castration procedure. Consequently, mukhannath or queer folks of Medina & Mecca begin to fade from historical sources, and the next generation of singers and musicians had few mukhannathun in their ranks.

Abbasid Period

During the Abbasid caliphate, the word itself was used as a descriptor for men who are entertainer and submissive or effeminate gay.Mukhannath were employed as dancers, musicians, comedian & guards of Abbasid harems.In later eras Mukhannath term has been mostly associated with effeminate homosexuality.

Safavid Period

Safavid Dynasty (1501–1736) was a Twelver Shia dynasty of Iran.Mukhannathun also appeared in Safavid Era.

Acceptance of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals within Islam can be highly influenced by cultural, social, political & regional factors. Different Muslim majority countries & communities may have differing attitudes towards gender identity and expression, ranging from acceptance to stigmatization.

Hadith Literature

Almost all references of ahadith literature justifies animosity toward queer people & have been quoted out of context; Islamic clerics,scholars wrongly condemn trans folks, despite so many major Islamic scholars having argued that the Hadith actually refer to cross-dressers (who want to deceitfully gain access to women’s spaces).

According to Sahih Bukhari 4324, Narated by Umm Salama narrated that ''Prophet (ﷺ) came to me while there was an mukhannath (Hit) sitting with me, and I heard him (i.e. the effeminate man) saying to `Abdullah bin Abi Umaiya, "O `Abdullah! See if Allah should make you conquer Ta'if tomorrow,then take the daughter of Ghailan (in marriage) as (she is so beautiful and fat that) she shows four folds of flesh when facing you, and eight when she turns her back." The Prophet (ﷺ) then said, "These (effeminate men) should never enter upon you (O women!)."

Al-Tabari (1978) took it as an example that the Prophet did not forbid a particular mukhanath, Hit, from entering the women’s quarters until he heard Hit giving a description of the women’s bodies in great detail.Hit was later prohibited from the house because ze had breached the trust of the Prophet, but not because of her gender identity or expression.According to Dr. Scott Siraj Kugle the mukhannath hadiths were so grossly taken out of context by many muslim conservatives,that what appeared to be a prophetic wisdom of protecting and sanctifying the privacy of women’s spaces; devolved into a punitive condemnation of gender & sexual diversity.

Its also known that Prophet Muhammad protect a Mukhannath (or trans woman) from death sentence.

According to a Sunan Abu Dawud 4910,narrated by Abu Hurayrah that,

''A mukhannath who had dyed his hands and feet with henna was brought to the Prophet (ﷺ).He asked: What is the matter with this man? He was told: "Messenger of Allah! He imitates the look of women." So he issued an order regarding him & he was banished to an-Naqi. The people said: Messenger of Allah! Should we not kill him? He said: I have been prohibited from killing people who pray.

According to Abu Usamah said: Naqi' is a region near Medina and not a Baqi ''.

According to Progressive Muslim scholar Mahdia Lynn, ''One group interprets this hadith as a transgressor banished: this person being sent away clearly teaches us that gender diverse people are not welcome in the Prophet’s community. According to this interpretation, living out the prophetic example today means that excluding gender and sexual diversity from Islam is right and good.

Another group looks at this story and sees a life saved: it’s clear there was a group of men ready to murder this person and so the Prophet saved their life by sending them away (to an-Naqi, a location between Mecca and Medina, which is interpreted to mean “within the bounds of Islam”). Living out prophetic example means not only accepting gender & sexual diversity as a valid part of the ummah, but being called upon to protect LGBTQI+ Muslims.''

Opinions

Within Islamic history and scholarship, there have been discussions and debates surrounding gender identities and expressions that transcends the gender binary.In the pre-modern period, muslim societies were aware of several gender non-confirmities: this can be seen through figures such as the khaasi (eunuch), the hijra (non-binary,trans), the mukhannath (trans-feminine),the mutarajjilat (trans male), the mamsuh (agender),the bissu (non-binary, polygender),the sida-sida (bigender) and the khuntha (intersex). Some Islamic scholars have explored the concept of "mukhannathun," which actually refers to individuals assigned male at birth but who exhibit feminine characteristics or behaviors.

Several scholars such as Mehrdad Alipour (2017) & Everett K. Rowson (1991) point to references in the Hadith to the existence of mukhannath: a man who carries femininity in his movements,in his appearance, and in the softness of his voice.Western scholars Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin & Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli see the term mukhannath as referring to men who are behave like women,but do not want to undergo sex reassignment surgery,in contrast to transgender or intersex people.

Mukhannath term may use as an umbrella term for gender & sexual diverse.While sometimes Mukhannath classified as transgender people,the Mukhannathun as a group do not neatly fit into the western categories of gender or sexuality.There was too much variety from one Mukhannath to the next to establish a specific label for their gender or sexual identity, & the meaning of the term has changed over time.The Arabic term for a trans woman is Mukhannith, as they want to change their sex, while mukhannaths presumably don't.

In Popular Culture

Books

The Effeminates of Early Medina - Everett K. Rowson

Homosexuality,Transidentity and Islam -Ludovic Ahmad Zahed

Before homosexuality in Arab-Islamic World - Khaled El-Rouayheb

Sexual Ethics and Islam - Kecia Ali

Living Out Islam:Voices of Gay, Lesbian & Transgender Muslims - Scott Siraj Kugle

Homosexuality in Islam:Critical reflection on gay, lesbian & transgender muslims - Scott Siraj Kugle

Que(e)ring Religion:A Critical Anthology - Gary David Comstock, Susan E. Henking

Islam and Homosexuality - Samar Habib [volume 1], [volume 2]

Sexual and Gender Diversity in Muslim World - Vanja Hamzić

Islamic Homosexualities - Stephen O. Murray, Will Roscoe

Islamicate Sexualities:Translations across Temporal Geographies of Desire - Afsaneh Najmabadi,Kathryn Babayan

Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic history - Taef El-Azhari

The Diesel (الديزل) by Thani al-Suwaidi

The Delight of Hearts - Ahmad Al-Tifashi

Governing Thirdness: State, Society and Non-Binary Identities - Muhammad Azfar Nisar

Films & TV

Allah Loves Equality - Wajahat Abbas Kazmi

Be Like Others - Tanaz Eshaghian

#gay muslim #transsexual muslim #transmuslim #queer history #queer islam #Hijra #Mukhannath #Mukhannith #khanith #transgender #non binary #genderqueer #gender ambiguity

38 notes · View notes

sangu1vore · 11 months

Text

happy pride month to lesbians and bisexuals and gays and fags and transsexuals and butches and femmes and studs and disabled queer people and closeted queer people and queer people with “contradicting” or “confusing” labels and fat queer people and black queer people and brown queer people and asian queer people and queer elders and newly out or newly discovered queers and asexuals and aromantics and jewish queer people and muslim queer people and people who use microlabels and people who dont use any labels and twinks and bears and everything inbetween and and and and

#I LOVE YOU ALL #.txt

31 notes · View notes

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 6 months

Text

By: Leor Sapir, Joseph Figliolia

Published: Nov 8, 2023

Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, the largest provider of transgender medicine in New England and one of the leading institutions of its kind in the United States, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month. The plaintiff, a gay man who goes by the alias Shape Shifter, argues that by approving him for hormones and surgeries, Fenway Health subjected him to “gay conversion” practices, in violation of his civil rights. Carlan v. Fenway Community Health Center is the first lawsuit in the United States to argue that “gender-affirming care” can be a form of anti-gay discrimination.

The case underscores an important clinical reality: gender dysphoria has multiple developmental pathways, and many who experience it will turn out to be gay. Even the Endocrine Society concedes that many of the youth who outgrow their dysphoria by adolescence later identify as gay or bisexual. Decades of research confirm as much. Gender clinicians in the U.K. used to have a “dark joke . . . that there would be no gay people left at the rate [the Gender Identity Development Service] was going,” former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes reported. Rather than help young gay people to accept their bodies and their sexuality, what if “gender-affirming” clinicians are putting them on a pathway to irreversible harm?

Due partly to Shape’s lifelong difficulty in accepting himself as gay, his lawyers are not taking the usual approach to detransition litigation. Rather than state a straightforward claim of medical malpractice or fraud, they allege that Fenway Health has violated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in health care. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that “discrimination because of . . . sex” includes discrimination based on homosexuality. Citing this and other precedents, Shape’s lawyers argue that federal law affords distinct protections to gay men and lesbians—upon which clinics that operate with a transgender bias are trampling.

Shape grew up in a Muslim country in Eastern Europe that he describes in an interview as “very traditional” and “homophobic.” His parents disapproved of his effeminate demeanor and interests as a child. They wouldn’t let him play with dolls, and his mother, he says, made him do stretches so that he would grow taller and appear more masculine.

At 11, Shape had his first of several sexual encounters with older men. “I was definitely groomed,” he recounts. Shape proceeded to develop a pattern of risky sexual behavior, according to his legal complaint. He told his medical team at Fenway Health about his childhood sexual experiences, calling them “consensual.” The Fenway providers never challenged him on this interpretation, he alleges. They never suggested that he might have experienced sexual trauma or, say, explored how these events might have shaped his feelings of dissociation. (The irony is that Fenway Health describes its model of care as “trauma-informed.”)

As with the social environment they inhabited, Shape’s parents were “deeply homophobic,” he says. When Shape came out to his parents as gay at 15, they took him to a therapist, hoping that he would be “fixed.” But when he graduated high school at that same age, he moved to Bulgaria for college, and in 2007, at 17, he came to the United States for a summer program at the University of North Carolina. He later moved to Massachusetts to pursue an MBA at Clark University and immigrated to the U.S.

Though he had known about cross-dressers and transsexuals as a child (he had taken interest in Dana International, the famous Israeli transsexual who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998), it was only at Clark that he was introduced to the idea that some people are transgender. Other students began asking him about his pronouns and telling him about “gender identity.” After getting to know a “non-binary” person and a transgender woman, Shape started to make sense of his life retrospectively. As a boy going through puberty, he had developed larger-than-average breasts and was curvier than the other boys. It was hard for him to be accepted in the gay community, he told me, because gay men tend to value masculinity. His discomfort with social expectations about how men are supposed to look and behave, his sexual attraction to other men, his ongoing psychological and emotional distress: these were all signs, he learned from online forums, that he must have been “born in the wrong body.”

Shape quickly developed self-hatred and a strong desire to escape his body. When he started cross-dressing and presenting socially as a woman, things changed. It had been hard for him to win acceptance as an effeminate gay man, but he encountered far less hostility presenting as a woman. A subtle but important shift in his thinking took place.

“People wouldn’t take me seriously when I was a man who presented socially as a woman,” he says. “I had to actually be a woman.” Shape became immersed in online transgender culture, which told him that sex is a social construct, and that hormones and surgeries can actually turn him into a woman. As a result, Shape developed highly unrealistic expectations about what hormones and surgeries could do for him. An example noted in his legal filing: he stopped using condoms because he wanted to get pregnant.

Julie Thompson, a physician assistant and Medical Director of the Trans Health Program at Fenway Health, made no effort to perform differential diagnosis on Shape, his legal filing alleges. Shape told Thompson about his childhood sexual encounters, his troubled history of risky sexual activity, and his struggles with social and familial rejection on account of his homosexuality. Allegedly, she wrote these difficulties off as byproducts of society not accepting him as a “trans woman”—an approach known as “transgender minority stress.” Shape’s ongoing mental-health problems, it was determined, were due to “internalized transphobia.”

As Shape’s filing puts it, the Fenway clinic operated with a strong “transgender bias.” Every problem or counter-indication that came up was explained away as part of the stress that transgender people experience in an unwelcoming society. The clinicians at Fenway Health apparently assumed that sexual orientation and gender identity are two distinct and independent phenomena.

Shape was put on estrogen at age 23. According to his filing, he was not given “any explanation of the numerous potential adverse side effects of estrogen or its potentially unknown effects.” As Shape kept taking estrogen, he became even more emotional, depressed, and unstable. Notably, he did not dislike his male genitals—a fact that should have attracted more scrutiny from his clinicians—but seemed more distressed over his high sex drive and desire for intercourse with men. Though he says he frequently told his providers that he hoped “sex reassignment surgery” would reduce his sex drive, this statement did not cause them to reconsider whether estrogen was appropriate.

As the Fenway team allegedly saw it, Shape’s deterioration was evidence that he hadn’t gone far enough in his transition. They recommended that he attend First Event, a Boston-based conference held annually since 1980, where transgender people can meet one another, share ideas, interact with vendors, and find medical providers who will agree to perform procedures on them. Marci Bowers, the genital surgeon who is president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, has attended the conference in the past. According to Shape, the point of going to First Event was to find a surgeon who would operate on him.

He did just that, and in 2014, at 24, Shape underwent facial feminization surgery and breast implantation. Less than a year later, a surgeon surgically castrated him and conducted what’s euphemistically called “bottom surgery.” It didn’t work. As a result, Shape had to undergo several additional surgeries, the last one borrowing tissue from his colon. Still, the problems persisted.

It took Shape a few years to realize that he had made a terrible mistake. The problem he had been trying to solve all his life was not “internalized transphobia” but failure to accept himself as an effeminate gay man. His legal filing states that he had what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders called, at the time he made contact with the clinic, “ego-dystonic homosexuality.” Because they failed to detect this and other mental-health problems, the Fenway team, argue Shape’s lawyers, “outrageously, knowingly, recklessly, and callously” led him to believe that he was really a heterosexual woman whose problems could be solved by de-sexing himself as male.

Shape was promised “gender euphoria.” Instead, he told me that he now sees himself as “mutilated.” His treatments have left him with “osteoporosis and scoliosis” as well as “mental fog,” according to his legal filing. Shape is now “faced with the impossible choice of improving his cognitive state and suffering the psychological and physical effect of phantom penis, or taking estrogen and suffering mental fog and fatigue, but no phantom penis and low libido.” He has also endured fistulas as a complication of his genital surgery and “suffers from sexual dysfunction and is unable to enjoy sexual relations.” He experiences dangerous inflammation. And not getting the mental health therapy he needed very likely caused Shape’s mental health to deteriorate throughout the several years that he was a patient at Fenway Health.

Shape now wants to have his breast implants removed. But insurance does not cover the procedure because it is not technically “gender affirming.” And since he cannot afford the hefty price tag, Shape has no choice but to live with the implants.

Understandably, criticism of gender medicine has focused largely on its use in minors. Its use in adults, however, is not without controversy. In the past, when clinicians spoke of adult transgender medicine, they were referring mainly to adult men who sought to change their bodies in their forties. Many had already spent years in marriage and were fathers of children.

That is no longer the case. Though data are limited, the main patient demographic in adult transgender clinics today appear to be 18-24-year-olds. In Finland, for example, adult referrals rose approximately 750 percent between 2010 and 2018, with 70 percent of referrals being 18-22-year-olds.

Humans reach full cognitive maturity around age 25, which means that there is often little to distinguish a 20-year-old from a 17-year-old in terms of impulse control, emotional self-regulation, and the ability to set long-term goals and prioritize them over present desires. Citing “irrefutable evidence” that being under 25 means having “diminished capacity to comprehend the risk and consequences of [one’s] actions,” the progressive decarceration and racial-justice advocacy group The Sentencing Project argues that the idea that people are adults once they reach age 18 “is flawed.”

Shortly after its founding in 1971, Fenway Community Health Center was repurposed to support the unique needs of gay and lesbian residents of Boston. According to Katie Batza, a historian of the clinic, the hippies and antiwar activists who founded Fenway Health “quickly solidified its reputation as an important gay medical institution.” During the 1980s, the clinic helped tackle the AIDS epidemic. That it now maltreats gay men like Shape by converting them into trans women reflects a tectonic shift within the institution’s culture.

American medicine has always found itself balancing two competing tendencies: the paternalism of care by experts on one hand, and the relativism of nonjudgmental customer service on the other. What has happened over the course of Fenway Health’s five decades of existence is a gradual loss of that equilibrium. Fenway has long defined its mission in terms of responsiveness to the stated needs and desires of community members: the volunteers who ran the clinic and offered its services free of charge, Batza writes, “focused on providing care and building community among Fenway residents, caring less if a volunteer met outside standards of professional qualification, which were often set by the state or medical profession, that the clinic critiqued.”

In the 1990s, the clinic set up a dedicated transgender unit. At first, “things moved slowly,” recounts Marcy Gelman, a nurse practitioner who served as Fenway Health’s first dedicated provider for transgender patients, in a document published by the institute about the history of its program. She is now its associate director of clinical research. “Patients didn’t get hormones right away. We wanted to get to know them, and required them to see a therapist for several months . . . we wanted to be careful.” This process felt too restrictive for some patients, and “a few got really angry.” Fenway Health says its “commitment to ensure patient safety . . . led to some conflicts with patients and community members.”

In the 2000s, Fenway Health adopted a new model of care for its transgender-identified patients, which it called the “informed consent model.” This came in response to patients complaining about “needless gatekeeping” and concerns that the clinic’s “customer service training specific to transgender patients lagged behind the development of its clinical care.” Using funding from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation, Fenway Health made a number of new hires and expanded its program. It drew inspiration from another community health clinic, the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, which was smaller than Fenway but served four times as many patients. “One key to [the Mazzoni Center’s] success,” the Fenway document explains, “was the elimination of any requirement for counseling before hormones were provided.” Ruben Hopwood, a physician who joined the Fenway team in 2005, developed this model for Fenway; soon thereafter, the institution’s three-month counseling requirement gave way to “a single hormone readiness assessment visit.”

In 2012, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health published the seventh version of its Standards of Care. In the chapter on hormone therapy, WPATH recommended eligibility criteria for estrogen or testosterone, including “persistent, and well-documented gender dysphoria” and having ongoing “medical or mental health concerns . . . reasonably well-controlled.” However, WPATH also noted a newly emerging “informed consent model” and cited Fenway Health as one of three clinics that developed and practiced it.

The difference between the models, WPATH explained, was that SOC-7 put “greater emphasis on the important role that mental health professionals can play in alleviating gender dysphoria and facilitating changes in gender role and psychosocial adjustment. This may include a comprehensive mental health assessment and psychotherapy, when indicated.” By contrast, Fenway Health’s model emphasizes “obtaining informed consent as the threshold for the initiation of hormone therapy in a multidisciplinary, harm-reduction environment. Less emphasis is placed on the provision of mental-health care until the patient requests it, unless significant mental health concerns are identified that would need to be addressed before hormone prescription.” Despite the obvious differences, WPATH insisted the two models were “consistent” with each other.

Currently, Fenway Health offers hormones on the informed-consent model. “Criteria for accessing hormone therapy,” it states, “are informed by the WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) guidelines.” In other words, Fenway Health defers to WPATH, which adopted its recommendations from Fenway Health.

Shape and his lawyers deny that Fenway’s informed consent process is “a safe and effective replacement for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment provided by an appropriately trained and licensed healthcare professional.” Fenway’s model, they argue, “relies heavily on patients’ self-diagnosis, which may be a result of confusion or a misunderstanding of medically defined terms.” It does not take into account a patient’s expectations from medical treatment, which, as in Shape’s case, can be highly unrealistic. It “does not inform patients about the risk of iatrogenic effects of affirmation.” Nor does it take into account a patient’s “medical decision-making capacity,” which may be impaired in the presence of “significant emotional distress” and “undue influence from persons in position of authority and trust.”

A key charge in Shape’s lawsuit is that Fenway Health is driven by “market expansion goals and political demands of transgender activists.” Approval for hormones and surgery, the clinic’s staff wrote in 2015, should be a “routine part of primary care service delivery, not a psychological or psychiatric condition in need of treatment.” A leading advocate for the no-gatekeeping model, which rests on the assumption that mismatch between one’s actual and perceived sex is a normal human variation and not a pathological condition, argues that adults and adolescents should be free to turn their bodies into “gendered art pieces.”

From Shape’s story, we can infer that Fenway Health, which could not be reached for comment, has yielded to a barely constrained medical consumerism. In 1997, the institute had eight transgender customers. By 2015, it had over 1,700. “The rapid and sustained growth of Fenway Health’s transgender health care, research, education, training, and advocacy,” the institute’s doctors proudly declare, “might be succinctly summarized by the mantra from the movie Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come.”

If you haven't met Shape Shifter, see the following interviews:

youtube

Literally "trans the gay away."

15 notes · View notes