title: Visual representations of Iranian transgenders.
abstract: Transsexuality in Iran has gained much attention and media coverage in the past few years, particularly in its questionable depiction as a permitted loophole for homosexuality, which is prohibited under Iran's Islamic-inspired legal system. Of course, attention in the West is also encouraged by the “shock” that sex change is available in Iran, a country that Western media and society delights in portraying as monolithically repressive. As a result, Iranian filmmakers inevitably have their own agendas, which are unsurprisingly brought into the film making process—from a desire to sell a product that will appeal to the Western market, to films that endorse specific socio-political agendas. This paper is an attempt to situate sex change and representations of sex change in Iran within a wider theoretical framework than the frequently reiterated conflation with homosexuality, and to open and engage with a wider debate concerning transsexuality in Iran, as well as to specifically analyze the representation of transexuality, in view of its current prominent presence in media.
authors.forename: Elhum
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shakerifar
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006716:Homosexuality / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D007492:Iran / Q000208:ethnology; D008402:Mass Media / Q000266:history; D012067:Religion / Q000266:history; D057829:Gender-Affirming Procedures / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology; D011049:Social Control Policies / Q000266:history; D012938:Social Perception; D014189:Transsexualism / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology