Yet in Afghanistan and in Iraq they have Man Love Thursdays, in which the men sleep with a young boy for sexual release. As explained to me by a translator after I asked an Afgan why not just sleep with your wife:

"Women are for procreation and boys are for recreation."

Apparently Iran is much different than Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have to point this out, because it is worth noting. NEVER refer to a trans woman as "he" or refer to one in male terms. You did it throughout the article, and it is seriously insulting. If someone is transitioning to female, it is SHE and only she, with correct female pronouns.

Seriously I thought from past observation an editor would catch this because it is a serious mistake. It is also a mistake to see surgery as the be all and end all of transition, even in Iran.

You are making some serious editorial mistakes here, and I have to call you on it, for something of the nature of broadsheet this is not a forgivable mistake.

And their impossibly high standards and forced gender role stereotyping.

and of the beneficent effects of "traditional values"

Ordinarily, I'd agree with you (although not in such strident tones, respecting that a particular way of using pronouns is something that's so deeply engrained in us from such a young age that I think we all need to be gentle to not-known-to-be-malicious people), but I don't know that it's really clear how to refer to someone who would "prefer to live as a cross-dresser" but is getting surgery not because they necessarily identify as a woman but because they want to marry their boyfriend.

"Identifying as a different gender" is one thing, and "playing by the rules of the game" is something else entirely...though they aren't mutually exclusive, of course.

"NEVER refer to a trans woman as "he" or refer to one in male terms. You did it throughout the article, and it is seriously insulting. If someone is transitioning to female, it is SHE and only she, with correct female pronouns."

The pronoun issue is problematic here, since the discussion is largely about whether these people are genuine transsexuals (i.e. people whose psychology/gender identity actually differs from their birth sex) or rather male-identified homosexual men who are forced into surgery by the murderous homophobia of the Islamic state.

The article cites not one but two cases where the individual suggests that at the very least the genital surgery was not something they sought. If they are ostensibly living as women, regardless of internal gender identity, then it is logical of course to refer to them in the feminine, but the ambiguity of this specific situation remains.

This phenomenon (the state sanctioned murder of homosexuals aside) clearly indicates that the Islamic rulers in Iran recognise the validity of sexual reassignment surgery and gender identity disorder (which they seem to lump homosexuality as).

Similarly I remember reading about a fatwa in Saudi Arabia, where a woman, had inherited a share of her father's estate, but relative to her having been his son at the time of his death (Islam has unequal inheritence rights between sexes, less an explicit will, a provision from the Qur'an itself). The female sibling(s) of this transwoman then sued since their daughters' share would actually grow based on the portion the former-son would surrender by becoming a fellow daughter. The cleric as I recall ruled that the son-share was appropriate because the individual was male at the time of dispensation. The point is both the imam and the plaintiff sister ultimately recognised the validity of transsexualism and the individual's female identity.

This is in contrast to several American states, including Texas and Kansas (surprise, surprise), which do not recognise sexual reassignment and took the horrible step of annulling marriages. The UK, Portugal and Ireland all had similar issues until the EU forced compliance. This issue has come up in the wider LGBT community as part of the marriage equality drive.