The term ‘transsexual’ is often mistaken for homosexuality in the Arab world and is considered highly sinful in Islam. This is why most Arab transsexuals, especially men, prefer keeping a low profile. In some Arab countries, they can face jail sentences for dressing or acting like the opposite sex. In some cases they can even be punished or killed by their families.

It is far easier for a woman to have a sex change operation and become a man. For instance, the recent Yemeni case of Nabila who discovered after a two-year marriage that she had been born male with a deformed masculine reproductive organ that had been reversed into her body since birth. On the other hand, a man who becomes a woman is seen to have dishonored the family since women are more vulnerable than men in the Arab world.

Locally, In January 2003, the first case of its kind in Kuwait, an unnamed transsexual submitted papers to the court proving that she had a sex-change operation and asked for a legal gender change to become a female. In April 2004, in an unprecedented ruling, a Kuwaiti court ruled that a 25-year-old man who underwent a sex-change surgery could be officially considered a woman. The judges were apparently guided by a religious edict allowing gender change if there are medical reasons for it, according to an Al-Azhar fatwa (religious edict). The ruling was approved by a higher court before it was finalized.

Full Story from the Kuwait Times

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