Violation of (sexual) human rights in Iraq: another piece of evidence

.It was shocking, to say the least, to watch recently a videotape, in which policemen in an unnamed Iraqi city were surrounding a man dressed in women’s clothes and carrying long hair. As opposed to the apparent state of ecstatic frenzy of the policemen, the man appeared motionless, passively obedient and his face betrayed immeasurable fear and horror. The policemen were acting as if they had achieved unparalleled feat. You could hear their giggles and you could sense their vulgar remarks ridiculing this unfortunate human being who found himself in this most degrading and inhuman situation. The videotape then shows the policemen ordering this person to sit on a chair and then the crafty hands of an ecstatically jubilant policeman turning a head full with hair into a skinhead.
What happened here? Apparently, the man, cross-dressing as a woman, was caught by the police and was then delivered by them a summary sentence. Although it is difficult to make a clinical diagnosis without examining the person, it seems that the man, cross dressing as a woman, is suffering from a psychiatric condition called transgender.
But what is transgender? Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society. Transgender is the state of one s "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, or neither) not matching one s "assigned gender" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex). "Transgender" does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The precise definition for transgender, however, remains in flux. Transsexualism is often included within the broader term transgender, which is generally considered an umbrella term for people who do not conform to typical accepted gender roles, for example cross-dressers.
Transgender has been around throughout history. Every society in history has had some name, role or way of relating to the transsexual, from ancient Canaan and Turkey to India, even to the present day. In India, ritual practices for transsexual individuals continue to the present day. Called Hijras, this sect also worship a Goddess, and undergo a primitive sort of sex reassignment surgery. The Hijras are treated in a rather hypocritical fashion within Indian society however, in that they are both despised and revered at the same time. Hijras often are paid to attend a bless weddings, and to act as spiritual and social advisers, but are also shunned as less than worthy eunuchs. Yet in other circumstances, such as social situations, they are accorded the status of true females.
Whether it is the Sererr of the Pokots of Kenya, the Xaniths of Islamic Oman, the Mahu of Tahiti, or even the Sekrata of Madagascar, the story is essentially the same: transsexuality was a fact of life, and a place in society was made for the gender dysphoric to be themselves.
Transgendered people, as any human being, should be treated with respect and dignity and in a fashion consistent with international standards of (sexual) human rights, and their psychiatric conditions be treated adequately and in accordance with standard relevant, agreed-upon medical guidelines (see below).
As declared in Hong Kong at the 14th World Congress of Sexology, August 26, 1999 , Sexual Rights are Fundamental and Universal Human Rights ( (http://www.worldsexology.org/about_sexualrights.asp)
The declaration stipulates that sexuality is an integral part of the personality of every human being. Its full development depends upon the satisfaction of basic human needs such as the desire for contact, intimacy, emotional expression, pleasure, tenderness and love.
Sexuality is constructed through the interaction between the individual and social structures. Full development of sexuality is essential for individual, interpersonal, and societal well being.
Sexual rights are universal human rights based on the inherent freedom, dignity, and equality of all human beings. Since health is a fundamental human right, so must sexual health be a basic human right.
In order to assure that human beings and societies develop healthy sexuality, the following sexual rights must be recognized, promoted, respected, and defended by all societies through all means. Sexual health is the result of an environment that recognizes respects and exercises these sexual rights.
1. The right to sexual freedom. Sexual freedom encompasses the possibility for individuals to express their full sexual potential. However, this excludes all forms of sexual coercion, exploitation and abuse at any time and situations in life.
2. The right to sexual autonomy, sexual integrity, and safety of the sexual body. This right involves the ability to make autonomous decisions about one s sexual life within a context of one s own personal and social ethics. It also encompasses control and enjoyment of our own bodies free from torture, mutilation and violence of any sort.
3. The right to sexual privacy. This involves the right for individual decisions and behaviors about intimacy as long as they do not intrude on the sexual rights of others.
4. The right to sexual equity. This refers to freedom from all forms of discrimination regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, social class, religion, or physical and emotional disability.
5. The right to sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure, including autoeroticism, is a source of physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual well being.
6. The right to emotional sexual expression. Sexual expression is more than erotic pleasure or sexual acts. Individuals have a right to express their sexuality through communication, touch, emotional expression and love.
7. The right to sexually associate freely. This means the possibility to marry or not, to divorce, and to establish other types of responsible sexual associations.
8. The right to make free and responsible reproductive choices. This encompasses the right to decide whether or not to have children, the number and spacing of children, and the right to full access to the means of fertility regulation.
9. The right to sexual information based upon scientific inquiry. This right implies that sexual information should be generated through the process of unencumbered and yet scientifically ethical inquiry, and disseminated in appropriate ways at all societal levels.
10. The right to comprehensive sexuality education. This is a lifelong process from birth throughout the life cycle and should involve all social institutions.
11. The right to sexual health care. Sexual health care should be available for prevention and treatment of all sexual concerns, problems and disorders.
A NUTSHELL: Transsexuals have always existed. In the ancient world, transsexuality was both accepted and respected. Throughout the ages, transsexuals have attempted to correct the error of their bodies, with varying results. The modern, technological world at last provides a real chance for the transsexual to finally, truly correct the errors of Nature.
People with transgender are born as such and it not a choice they make. From the Holy Qur`an, Surah 42: 49 - 50: "To Allah belongs the dominion over the heavens and the earth. He creates what he wills. He prepares for whom he wills females, and He prepares for whom He wills males. Or He joins together the males and the females, and He makes those whom He wills to be Aqim (in a normal heterosexual way ineffectual; also barren). Indeed He is the Knowing, the Powerful." From a 1988 Fatwa from Al - Azhar university regarding surgical treatment of intersex .( http://etransgender.com/viewforum.php?f=9).
Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.
Though intersex and transgender are different, though somewhat overlapping, medical conditions, any discrimination against those with transgender, though rightly accepting intersex as a legitimate medical condition, is neither scientifically sound nor is consistent with the standards of human rights.
More importantly for many Muslim transsexuals, they are not allowed to pray in a mosque dressed as women. “I believe in religion. I would love to go to the mosque, but the problem is the people. They won’t accept me,”says a transsexual. “They say ‘How do you want to pray? You look like women but you have a man’s sex.’ They think I’m like dirty. It’s like I can infect them. So I just pray by myself at home. But, for Muslims, it’s more meaningful to pray in a group.”
Another fear that plagues Muslim transsexuals is death, or rather what will happen to them after dying, especially if they’ve had a sex change. Certain rites in the religion are gender specific. For example, the body of a deceased Muslim has to be bathed by someone of the same sex. But because of the religion doesn’t acknowledge sex change, a transsexual would be treated as a man even if he’s had the operation, and would presumably be bathed by a man. This is something transsexuals do not feel comfortable with. “How can a transsexual be bathed by a man when she’s no longer a man?” asks another transsexual. “So far I don’t know any Muslim transsexual who’s had the operation and has died. So I really don’t know what would happen to such a person. It’s something all my sisters are worried about".
Even brief elaboration on standard psychiatric guidelines of treating transgender is beyond the scope of this article. Roughly speaking, one can differentiate between transivitism (cross-dressing in men just for sexual pleasure) and transsexualism (a person feels trapped in the wrong anatomical sex (of male or female) and seeks a gender reassignment. The treatment of transivitism is usually a long-term psychotherapy. The treatment of transsexualism is stipulated by Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (http://www.wpath.org/), which includes real-life test (full time cross-dressing for a specific period of time), hormonal therapy, and occasionally surgical gender reassignment.
At the end of last year, I wrote to the Iraqi Minister of Health, himself being a psychiatrist, and to the Iraqi Medical Association, calling on them to make sure that people with different sexual and gender orientation are properly and humanly treated and in accordance with standard, international medical guidelines. Unfortunately, I have never received a reply and since then the brutal attacks on such people in Iraq seems to be escalating. Therefore, I call on the Minister of Health and the Iraqi Medical Association again, and on all human and civil right activists to raise their voice loudly, in protest against these barbaric acts and to make sure that these vulnerable people be treated with dignity and respect and in accordance with international medical standards. It is our stance towards the most vulnerable people in our society that determines our civility and differentiae us as human beings from animals.

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