LGBT rights in Iran
|LGBT rights in Iran|
|Same-sex sexual activity legal?||Illegal: Islamic Sharia Law applied|
|Gender identity/expression||Sex reassignment surgery (male to female) provided free of charge by the
LGBT rights in Iran
|LGBT rights in Iran|
|Same-sex sexual activity legal?||Illegal: Islamic Sharia Law applied|
|Gender identity/expression||Sex reassignment surgery (male to female) provided free of charge by the government|
LGBT rights in Iran since the 1930's1 have come in conflict with the penal code. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by imprisonment, corporal punishment, or in some cases of'sodomy', even execution.2 Gay men have faced stricter enforcement actions under the law than lesbians.3 Iran insists that it does not execute people for homosexuality, and that homosexuals who have been executed have either committed rape, murder, or drug trafficking.4
Any type of sexual activity outside a heterosexual marriage is forbidden. Transsexuality in Iran is legal if accompanied by a sex change operation; however, transsexuals still report societal intolerance as in other societies around the world.3
- 1 History of LGBT rights in Iran
- 2 Legal status
- 3 Application of laws
- 4 Family and relationships
- 5 Censorship
- 6 Exiled political parties and groups
- 7 LGBT rights movement
- 8 AIDS/HIV
- 9 Asylum cases
- 10 Views of the Iranian Government on Homosexuality
- 11 Summary table
- 12 See also
- 13 Notes
- 14 References
- 15 External links
The history of homosexuality in Iran has been both influential and contradictory. The religion of Zoroastrianism in the country, which reached its peak under the Sassanids, taught that all homosexuals (active or passive) are inherently demonic and as such they must be put to deathcitation needed when detected. This condemnation seems to have made its way slowly against the much older Iranian tradition of polytheism and initiatory pederasty, coming into sharp conflict during the Achaemenid period.
Persia was conquered by the Arabs in A.D. 637, when Islam took over as the predominant faith. The Arabs were only superficially intolerant of homosexuality, and certainly the Koran specified no earthly punishment for homosexual behavior. Nevertheless, the devout Muslim was expected to know that God would be displeased. The outcome was a toleration and even celebration of pederasty in classical Islam, and much of the Arab poetry of this time is devoted to boys and their beauty. There is a significant amount of literature in Persian that explicitly illustrates the ancient existence of homosexuality among Iranians.5 As a result, over a period of time the people of Persia once again moderated or reversed their earlier position.
In Persian poetry, references to sexual love can be found in addition to those of spiritual/religious love. A few ghazals (love poems) and texts in Saadi's Bustan and Gulistan have been interpreted by Western readers as homoerotic poems. In some poems, Sa'di's beloved is a young man, not a beautiful woman. In this he followed the conventions of traditional Persian poetry. Sa'di's own attitude toward homosexuals was more negative than positive. In the Gulistan he stated, "If a Tatar slays that hermaphrodite / The Tatar must not be slain in return." Another story tells of the qazi of Hamdan whose affection towards a farrier-boy is condemned by his friends and the king, who eventually says: "Everyone of you who are bearers of your own faults / Ought not to blame others for their defects."6
Under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last monarch of the Pahlavi Dynasty, homosexuality was tolerated, even to the point of allowing news coverage of a same-sex wedding. In the mid-late 1970s, some Iranians even began to talk about starting up a gay rights organization, similar to the Gay Liberation movement. Until the revolution, there were some night clubs in which gay behavior was tolerated. During the Shah's time, however, homosexuality was still taboo everywhere, and often one could not turn to family or friends for support and guidance. There were no public agencies to assist youth or people who were confused or questioning their sexuality.
Janet Afary has argued that the 1979 revolution was partly motivated by moral outrage against the Shah's regime, and in particular against a mock same-sex wedding between two young men with ties to the court. She says that this explains the virulence of the anti-homosexual oppression in Iran.7
The new religious government that came to be established after the 1979 Iranian Revolution classed transsexuals and transvestites with gays and lesbians, who were condemned by Islam and faced the punishment and imprisonment under Iran's penal code. In 1986, transsexuals were re-classified as being "heterosexu