After the Revolution, Fereydoon, like all other transgender persons in Iran, was seriously harassed. She was made to wear men’s clothing, forced to take male hormones, and confined in a psychiatric hospital. In 1983, she tried approaching Khomeini directly and was badly beaten up by his bodyguards before succeeding. However Khomeini did give Fereydoon a religious authorization for sex-change surgery. This has been taken to be a fatwa that covers other transgender persons as well.
Subsequently Maryam struggled to organize transgender persons in Iran, and introduce medical standards. However she was not happy with procedures in Iran, and had surgery in Thailand in 2001. She runs the major transsexual campaign group in Iran, and frequently has to bail out trans persons who have been arrested.
- Nazila Fathi. “As Repression Lifts, More Iranians Change Their Sex”. The New York Times. Aug 2, 2004. www.nytimes.com/2004/08/02/international/middleeast/02iran.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1091489991-2sBf34Gerj3nlXAaASXZcQ.
- Robert Tait. “A Fatwa for Freedom”. The Guardian. 27 July 2005. www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1536658,00.html.
- Angus McDowell. "The Ayatollah and the transsexual". The Independent. 25 November 2004. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-ayatollah-and-the-transsexual-534482.html.
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