TIL that despite homosexual activity being punishable by death in the country, Iran allows gender reassignment surgery, and performs more of them than any country except Thailand.

This tidbit is sometimes presented like it's a pro-trans win, but the truth is far from pretty.

If you get caught as a cis-gendered gay man in Iran then you're potentially facing the death penalty. In a legal move that wouldn't exist anywhere else in the world, you can plea-bargain your ding dong into a hoo-hah.

If the state is offering you a choice between mutilation or death, is it even really a choice?

It doesn't so much "allow" as "forces".

Cis gay man? Get surgery or die.

Trans woman who doesn't want surgery? Get surgery or die.

Ohhhhh that's a lot less positive than you might think it is.

It's forced on whoever's not on role in the relationship to "conform to their behavior."

Sub men being forced to live as women, and dominant women being forced to live as men.

And yes, that includes "surgical correction."

The story of the woman who accomplished this is pretty interesting. Maryam Khatoon Molkara wrote a bunch of letters to the Ayatollah Khomeini asking for advice with her dysphoria. He told her to dress in woman’s clothes and encouraged her transition. Learning about her can be the positive part of this story - one person was able to improve the situation for people like her.

As others have pointed out, it’s not really a win for queer rights on the whole - you can transition from one set of strict enforced gender roles to another. You can’t be gay/lesbian. It might be coercive and fixing the distress of having the wrong set of hormones in your body is kinda the point of HRT.

Clearly a shining beacon of trans-rights.

/s

Trans folks are not always homosexual....