Area 77

Ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, all laws are based on the Islamic Shari’a law. Men and women of no relation are forbidden to socialize in any form or way. Parties are illegal along with dancing between the two sexes. Dating and any other form of unnecessary communication between the sexes is also forbidden.

Because of these strict restrictions, the Iranian youths and adults who wish to socialize with the opposite sex despite the rules of the government, are forced to commit most of their ‘criminal activities’ in the night at secret gathering places.

These secret gathering places are usually in apartments. Both men and women appear on the scene. The women arrive in the traditional dress code of the nation: non-clenching covering of the arms, legs, and head. But they are then directed to a special room where they change into the less conservative garments of their choice and apply some make up. In these parties, the people enjoy mixed dancing and alcohol among other things.

Fear of the Basij (religious police) is minimal. A young Iranian man claims:

If the Basij (religious police) come, we will try to talk with them. If the police come, unfortunately in Iran the police is easily bought off. Unfortunately, money resolves the problem, I mean, if you have money it’s not only the police that you can buy off, but even the Basij.

Another says:

We’ve got used to it, as we live here we’ve been caught so many times and then they set us free, so it is quite usual.

Even though heterosexuality is the only tolerated sexual orientation, having a heterosexual relationship other than a legal marriage is just as strictly forbidden as homosexual relationships. Male and female couples are not free to roam the streets of Iran as boyfriend and girlfriend. Instead, those who are committed enough but still choose not to be married find other places to be together. In the “Khomeini’s Children” documentary, the interviewed couple meet at the boyfriend’s apartment.

Once Leila, the girlfriend, enters Kave’s, her boyfriend’s apartment, she feels that it is permissible to reveal herself to him (and the film crew) by taking off her hijab (head-scarf) and the long-sleeved coat covering her arms and all of her torso. In the documentary, Leila is heard saying “Most of the things people are doing in Iran are illegal, but we have to do such illegal things, because of the human nature.” Kave feels that “elementary things of human life are forbidden in Iran. [Couples] have to see each other, [they] have to go to the restaurant, [they] have to go to the parties, [they] have to have a relationship.”

Among the usual punishments of banned heterosexual activity is the forced marriage of the two in question by the judge. Leila describes a situation where that happened to one of Kave’s neighboring houses across the road. A woman had called the police to her home because she had found a girl with four other men in her home. When they all went to the judge, the woman was forced to marry one of them. “I don’t know why. They weren’t supposed to get married but they had to do it because they were there together.”

Before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, homosexuality in Iran was somewhat tolerated. Under the rule of the Pahlavi Dynasty, homosexuality was still taboo but not quite illegal. After the first Gay Liberation Day March in New York City in 1970, many Iranians were thinking of starting their own gay rights organizations in Iran as well. However, not much progress was occurring for the issue before the Iranian Revolution began to take effect.

In Islam, any sexual actions or relations outside the traditional heterosexual marriage are considered sinful and illegal. Any people caught committing said acts are punished according to the severity of the action. Same-sex intercourse could carry the death penalty in Iran, either by stoning or public hanging.

There is no such thing as sexual orientation in Iran. People are naturally born heterosexual. Any violation to that norm is a violation to Allah’s will. That violation is considered a sin and sins are meant to be dealt with by the use of punishment.

Punishment is different for men and women. For men, any non-adults who commit homosexual acts are charged with 74 lashes if there is proof. In Islam, legally substantial evidence is approved only when four righteous men can honestly admit to witnessing the act or if the charged admits to his acts four times. The same punishment is given to the accused for a maximum of three separate times. Death is the punishment for the fourth time the man is caught.

As a guest speaker in Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on September 10th of 2006, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami stated “In regards to the issue of gay people as well as the issue of adultery, the conditions that are required for capital punishment are so strict that it is virtually impossible to meet.”

In July of 2005, a major story from Iran broke out and spread all over the world. It was about the public hanging of two Iranian youths who, apparently, were executed for being gay. However, information is still not accurate. There is reason to believe that their executions were not necessarily for them being gay. They had also received 228 lashes while in custody for drinking and theft.

Research conducted by the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International has found, so far, that the teenagers, [Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni], were convicted of and executed for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old male, a crime that occurred when the two teens may have been minors.

Transsexuality has become a different issue in the past 30 years. As far as the government goes, they are not considered as outcasts with the homosexual community. A slightly brighter light shines on the slowly growing number of transsexual individuals in Iran. Thanks to a certain fatwa from the nation’s greatest religious leaders.

In 1963, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini released a fatwa stating that those who feel that they were not born as the gender they are supposed to be are allowed to have a physical operation or a series of operations in order to fix that error and be reassigned to the other gender. That fatwa was not taken into heart during the Pahlavi Dynasty and the rule of the Shah. It was still not put into service even after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 until the public actions of one individual.

Maryam Hatoon Molkara used to write to Khomeini while he was in exile before the revolution. She, who was then a man named Fereydoon, asked for religious guidance from the Grand Ayatollah. He replied back with blessings and an explanation to her as to why this situation is different than the homosexual situation. But when the revolution came and Khomeini became the leader of the nation, this fatwa was still non-existent. Homosexuals and transsexuals alike were captured and imprisoned. They were also charged with the Islamic Shari’a punishments for their sins. In addition to the lashes,

Maryam was installed in a pyshiatric institution, forced to inject male hormones and dress like a man again. But she fought for her desire to be a true woman once and for all and contacted Khomeini again after numerous failures at the hands of his guards.

Molkara left the Khomeini compound with a letter addressed to the chief prosecutor and the head of medical ethics giving religious authorization for her — and, by implication, others like her — to surgically change their gender. It was the fatwa she had sought.

Today, there is a growing number of clerics and religious scholars that are approving of the sex-change procedures done for the transsexuals. Among them is the current Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini and Hojatolislam Muhammad Mehdi Kariminia, a cleric that wrote his doctoral thesis on transsexuality. Kariminia wants to suggest “the right of transsexuals to change their gender is a human right, and that he wants to introduce transsexuals to the people through [his] work and in fact remove the stigma or the insults that sometimes attach to [transsexuals].” He believes that after the operations, “the basic humanity of the person is preserved,” and that “the change is simply of characteristics.”

Some clerics think in a slightly different way. Many homosexuals have been given advice from religious clerics to undergo sex-change operations so that they would technically refrain themselves from committing sinful acts. However, those who truly feel like they are trapped in a body not of their own sometimes receive financial assistance from the government to help pay for the costs of the operation. Although it is not completely covered, the government of Iran usually gives out a small amount of money. In addition to that, the “Imam Khomeini Charity Foundation has agreed to provide loans equivalent to about $1,200 to help pay for sex-change surgery.”