Abstract
In 2005, following a year of increased attention in English language media to the prominence of sexual reassignment surgeries in Iran, the London-based Guardian dubs Tehran “the unlikely sex-change capital of the world.” This title is significantly complicated when we realize that according to mainstream English media, Tehran is not the first or only sex change capital of the world. Its sister city is Trinidad, Colorado, a predominantly Catholic town with a population hovering around 9,000. Although English language newspapers have served up stories of each location as “surprising” magnets for SRS, none have mentioned both places in the same article because these stories operate with a different set of logics related to religion, sex, and human rights. Analysis of the journalist rhetoric of these two unlikely capitals highlights these diverse logics, particularly how assumptions about Muslim subjectivity affects judgments about the status of sexual freedom in Iran.
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Notes
My thanks to my colleague Serena Perekh for sharing her excellent essay on structural injustice and gender inequality which has greatly influenced the way I theoerize the ethics of media discourse (Parekh 2011).
Massad is primarily interested in the “Arab World,” but for the purposes of this essay, I have extended his theory to the “Muslim World” as this concept is assumed and reinforced in journalistic rhetoric.
Massad's theory certainly has its critics, and the case of the media coverage of unlikely sex change capitals raises three specific problems. First, it is important to acknowledge that if LGBT advocacy logics rely on western categories of sex, gender, and orientation, these categories have a history in the “Muslim World” that pre-dates the rise of Gay International organizations. For example, the sexual logics of medicine, received through the Arabic and Persian translations of Freudian psycho-analytical theory, had already shifted the Iranian understanding of what a sexual subject entails, how sexual identity might be hidden, and the importance of protecting the well-being of the self, all of which support SRS, well before the rise of LBGT advocacy networks. Transsexuality is supported in Iran by a complex set of logics and institutions including an Islamic state that has no interest in collaborating with LGBT advocacy institutions.
Second, Massad attributes intentionality to the LGBT discourse, which he refers to as an “orientalist impulse” derived from “missionary tasks” (Massad 2002: 362, 2007: 161). The institutions Massad critiques have refuted this intention. But more importantly, and as Young's theory of structural justice supports, an imperialist agenda is not necessary for LGBT advocacy logics to adversely affect global understanding of Muslim subjectivity. In fact, my analysis will show how the specific conceptual and normative assumptions of the LGBT advocacy become mixed with an independent form of orientalism, mainly western moral exceptionalism, which produces yet another set of logics that harshly judged Muslim sexuality.
Roshanak Kheshti makes a similar argument in regards to the overrepresentation of queer and trans Iranians in Iranian cinema in the last 20 years (Khesthi 2009: 164).
For example, the practices used by journalists when finding local citizens to interview about their opinions differ dramatically from social-scientific research methods (which exhibit a great deal of care in dealing with sample size and protecting human subjects, etc.). There is an interesting parallel project here, comparing and contrasting the findings of social-scientific research in these communities with the reports of journalists, that is unfortunately outside the scope of this article.
In a recent essay, Afsaneh Najmabadi provides a helpful diagram of the official Iranian filtering process for determining who is a “true transsexual” (Najmabadi 2011: 538).
In Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the US Supreme Court in a 6–3 ruling, struck down the sodomy law in Texas. However, there are a number of ways in which the Iranian Penal Law is especially problematic. For example, it discusses sodomy in the same section as rape, sexual assault, and incest, so that all non-procreative sexual actions are defined as not only deviant, but also violent. Rape and sodomy charges are often joined, which makes it more difficult for LGBT and women's rights defenders to advocate for those accused. LGBT advocacy groups have also pointed out instances in which the Iranian authorities have used sodomy laws to discredit and frame outspoken political opponents, through charges of “morality crimes” (Alizadeh and Poore 2007).
I am indebted to Anne Enke for sharing her research on Trinidad, Colorado and her grasp of which LGBT issues were not raised in the media’s coverage on this unlikely sex change capital. See our co-written essay (Bucar and Enke 2011)
Sisters of Charity founded the hospital in 1889 and ran it until 1970 when the Trinidad Area Health Association took over ownership. Sisters continued to be highly involved in patient care until the mid-1990s; crosses adorn the walls, and people still consider the hospital “Catholic,” influenced by Catholic spiritual perspectives and ethics, although it has no formal connection to the Catholic Church.
According to Enke, the first major article to run in the New York Times introduces this angle, Brooke, “Sex-Change Industry a Boon to Small City,” and virtually all following media coverage elaborates on the theme.
When published in more abbreviated forms as a Reuters attributed wire piece, the legality of SRS in Iran is not even mentioned. “She wants his life back,” The Advertiser (June 20, 2000); “Iranian demands sex-change reversal,” The Globe and Mail (Canada) (June 20, 2000); “A woman's life in Iran unbearable for transsexual,” The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec) (June 20, 2000); and “Transsexual prefers man's life,” Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia) (June 20, 2000).
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Bucar, E.M. Representation of Muslim sexual subjectivities: the hidden ethical judgments of journalistic rhetoric. Cont Islam 7, 191–205 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-012-0193-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-012-0193-z