[ExI] Beowulf

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 22/11/2007, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> What if a person is born ambiguously gendered in those societies?  Do they
> get some rights to go outside sometimes?  Can such a person give permission
> for a female relative to go outside?  If two ambiguously gendered persons
> live together there, can they give each other half permission to go out, or
> do they need to accompany each other?
>
> So complicated is this.

It is complicated. See the following article about transgendered people in Iran:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4115535.stm


quote---
He shows me the book in Arabic in which, 41 years ago, Ayatollah
Khomeini wrote about new medical issues like transsexuality.

"I believe he was the first Islamic scientist in the world of Islam
who raised the issue of sex change," says Hojatulislam Kariminia.

The Ayatollah's ruling that sex-change operations were allowed has
been reconfirmed by Iran's current spiritual leader.

That has meant that clerics like Hojatulislam Kariminia can study
transsexuality - unlike homosexuality which is completely forbidden in
Islam and illegal in Iran.

"I want to suggest that the right of transsexuals to change their
gender is a human right," says the cleric, who is so fascinated by the
subject that he says he dreams about the transsexuals he has studied
at night.

"I am trying to introduce transsexuals to the people through my work
and in fact remove the stigma or the insults that sometimes attach to
these people," says Hojatulislam Kariminia.
---endquote


Doesn't excuse the Ayatolla's other faults, of course, but it just
goes to show that you shouldn't make assumptions about a demonised
enemy.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou