Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the issue of
transsexuality in pic: Athena, a 20-year-old male to female
transsexual in conservative In 1963, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
wrote a book in which he stated that there is no religious
restriction on corrective surgery. However, this applied only to
intersexuals, and at the time Khomeini was a radical, anti-Shah
revolutionary and his fatwas did not carry any weight with the
Imperial government, which did not have any specific policies
regarding transgendered individuals. The new religious
government that came to be established after the 1979 Revolution
classed transsexuals and transvestites with gays and lesbians,
who were condemned by Islam and faced the punishment of lashing
and death under Iran's penal code. One early campaigner for
transsexual rights is Maryam Hatoon Molkara, who was formerly a
man known as Fereydoon. Before the revolution, she had longed to
become a woman but could not afford surgery. Furthermore, she
wanted religious authorization. Sinc