Trans Talk: TRANSING AND TRANSPASSING ACROSS SEX-GENDER WALLS IN IRAN

 Afsaneh Najmabadi, Professor of History and Women's Studies, Harvard University will discuss TRANSING AND TRANSPASSING ACROSS SEX-GENDER WALLS IN IRAN Thursday, October 18th 4 pm in 370 Dwinelle (Level F) at the University of California in Brekeley.

 
This talk focuses on current contours of transexuality in Iran and considers the particular mapping of trans-identities and lives in a context where transexuality is legal and homosexuality is not. How does legality of transexuality and illegality of homosexuality shape sexual subjectivities in Iran? How do state-codified notions of proper public manhood and womanhood affect sexualities? The talk will look at how the confluence of classical
Islamic discourse on the "true sex" of every human body with the psychomedicalized notion of "truth of sex" - that a natural biological sex determines one's gender behavior and sexual desire - has given a powerful impetus to the acceptability of "curing" transexuality through sex-change medical interventions, while sustaining homosexuality as an unacceptable criminalized deviation.