Tired of male domination, 5 Saudi women change sex

[sugarimp]

RIYADH (Reuters) - Tired of playing second fiddle to men in conservative Saudi Arabia, five women decided if you can't beat them, join them.Al Watan newspaper said the five women underwent sex change surgery abroad over the past 12 months after they developed a "psychological complex" due to male domination

Comments

[zhelana]

I'm curious to know whether they were treated as men or women when they got home. Like whether the authorities acknowledged the change in status at all since obviously all their legal documentation would still say they are female...

[gabski]

i wonder what the Qu'ran has to say about this ;)

[zhelana]

Well it does prescribe death for women "dressing and acting as men"

[gabski]

oo.. i didnt know that. i did see Osama though (not about bin laden) and the little girl was supposed to be stoned to death... didnt realize it was in the Qu'ran.

[zhelana]

nods. a lot of the muslim women i know won't even wear jeans because of it.

[madamerahil]

Where does it prescribe death in the Qur'an for this?

[zhelana]

I dont know exactly where, it was in an article we read by a Muslim scholar for my "Islam and the Developing World" course.

[madamerahil]

Well, it's not punishable by death and nor does it mention it in the Qur'an, but it does say not to dress like men and for men not to dress like women.

[psykhokat]

Iran is one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to sex change surgery, even though they are muslim. Although I guess that the reason behind has to be some kind of accepted "disorder" and not only to become educated or to get a driving licence :p

[jack_qotn]

I don't know about the legal documentation (in some countries you can get it changed, common sense would tell me they wouldn't there, but it would also tell me they'd get arrested for it so I don't know), but if their treatment included testosterone I have a hard time believing anybody could really tell the difference. That stuff really changes the way people look.

[zhelana]

Oh yeah, I'm not doubting the way it makes you look and all - but the article said they left the country to get the surgery done. So to leave the country they had to have a passport from that country, and one would assume it would still say female - and all their other id from before would say female, so how much would the saudi gov't be willing to change it?

In Colorado, gay marriage is completely illegal, but if one person has a sex change while already legally married, they remain married (at least this was the case 3 years ago, I know it was under legal challenge at the time)

[jack_qotn]

Ah, I see what you're talking about then. I don't know about how the passport deal is.

With the gay marriage/sex change deal, I did know one person who refused to have her birth certificate changed to say "female" because she was married to a woman and didn't want to have the marriage nullified. I don't know if they can change records like that in Saudi Arabia.

[zhelana]

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2212/context/ourdailylives

Looks like whatever gender you are born with you keep in Saudi.

Relevant Part:

I spent my last evening sitting with a group of people in the family section of an outdoor cafe. At one point, a member of our party--a young man from Jeddah--recounted the tale of a man from Saudi Arabia who had a sex change operation in the United States and became a woman.

After her father died, her family argued that she was entitled to only a half-share of the estate because he was now a she. After a lawsuit, the Saudi courts declared that the person was always a he--regardless of surgery--and therefore entitled to a full share.