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

[gabski]

wow. thats intense.

[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.

[caatinga]

What a strange spin to put on these cases...for a such a normative environment, I'd expect to see the word "sinner" or its equivalent thrown around a lot more.

'A psychological complex due to male domination' is a strange conclusion for a country that "adopts an austere interpretation of Islam" to draw, don't you think? These people got sex changes! If Reuters is correctly quoting Al-Watan correctly, then what we have here is a very politically liberal slant on this. Very bizarre considering the context, I think. I tried (briefly) to find out more about Al-Watan (is it the NY Times of the Arab world?) but got nothing other than it was owned by the governor of the Asir district of Saudi Arabia...

Unless sex change really is tolerated under the radar, which is very surprising considering the amount of micromanagement surrounding the practice of gender...

:\