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Studies in Gender and Sexuality
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/hsgs20
Trans* Activism in Indonesia and Iran: Working
Against Misrecognition and Enhancing the
Intelligibility of Trans* Subjectivities
Jón Ingvar Kjaran & Zara Saeidzadeh
To cite this article: Jón Ingvar Kjaran & Zara Saeidzadeh (2024) Trans* Activism in
Indonesia and Iran: Working Against Misrecognition and Enhancing the Intelligibility
of Trans* Subjectivities, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 25:1, 49-61, DOI:
10.1080/15240657.2024.2312078
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15240657.2024.2312078
Published online: 28 Mar 2024.
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Trans* Activism in Indonesia and Iran: Working Against
Misrecognition and Enhancing the Intelligibility of Trans*
Subjectivities
Jón Ingvar Kjaran, Ph.D.
a
and Zara Saeidzadeh, Ph.D.
b
a
University of Iceland;
b
Örebro University
ABSTRACT
This article presents a case study of trans activism based on qualitative data
in Indonesia and Iran, drawing on the existing public discourses as well as
discourses and practices among activists. The article consolidates the work of
Nancy Fraser on the politics of recognition, while it uses Judith Butler’s ideas
on intelligible and unintelligible subjects to argue how the workings of
recognition and misrecognition of trans* status aect the liveability of
trans* people and how they are constituted as intelligible and unintelligible
subjects in society.
Introduction
Trans*
1
activism has taken shape differently around the world, affected by variety of sociohistorical
and political trajectories. In Indonesia and Iran, trans* people have for the last decades built commu-
nities of support and engaged in activism in online and offline spaces. The nature of trans* activism
and the structure of LGBT communities have taken different shapes contingent on socio-historical
and cultural contexts. However, there are similarities in terms of recognition/misrecognition and how
trans* bodies are read within society and in the official/public discourse. In Iran there is only one
relevant nongovernmental organization (NGO), which was established in 2007 by Maryam Khatoon
Molkara, called the Association for Protection of Patients with Gender Identity Disorder (Anjomani
hemayat az bimarani malali jinsi). After the death of Maryam Khatoon, the NGO went under the
direction of the government’s Social Harms Office at the Ministry of Cooperation, Labour and Social
Welfare in 2015. In contrast to Iran, in Indonesia trans* activism is mostly conducted by LGBTQ
community members. Both waria and transpria are today part of the growing LGBTIQ community in
Indonesia and run their own organizations (NGOs) and support groups. Today it is estimated that
around 120 NGOs are working on issues pertaining to sexuality and gender diversity, along with
smaller groups and organizations (Knight et al., 2016). However, queer/trans* activism has become
more precarious and dangerous since 2016 due to increased hostility and violence from various
religious groups and the authorities toward the queer community (Wijaya, 2020).
In this article we draw on Judith Butler’s (2004) definition of intelligibility and Nancy Fraser’s
(2000) concept of recognition to discuss the discourses and practices around the politics of (un)
intelligibility and (in)visibility of trans* people at structural, institutional, and individual levels of
society. In Indonesia, trans* activism has been part of LGBT community involving different groups
working collectively on issues related to gender and sexual diversity. Thus, trans* activism is focused
on the struggle for visibility and intelligibility of trans* in society and among lesbian, gay, and bisexual
CONTACT Jón Ingvar Kjaran jik@hi.is Department of Sociology of Education, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.
1
The term trans*, with the asterisk, is used in this article to underline crossing boundaries and transcending gender fixation. It is an
inclusive term that refers to people who identify as nonbinary, binary trans, trans men and trans women, and people who use
surgeries, hormones, or other medical interventions, as well as those who do not.
STUDIES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY
2024, VOL. 25, NO. 1, 49–61
https://doi.org/10.1080/15240657.2024.2312078
© 2024 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
groups. In Iran, on the other hand, trans* activism has taken different paths and has involved not only
trans* people, but also “experts,” including Islamic jurists, medical professionals, and artists who have
advocated for recognition of trans* people in society. According to Foucault (1972), in modern
societies, knowledge is discursively produced through power relations: a decentralized power that is
exercised from below, and that is everywhere and produces discourses of incorporation and normal-
ization. In that sense, intersection of different discourses and practices has constructed trans* activism
within the frame of transnormativity, which has led to distorted social visibility of some trans* people
whose intelligibility is undermined. Drawing on case studies from Indonesia and Iran, we explore how
recognition of trans* is both constructed and built through activism by speaking to both invisibility/
visibility of trans*. In other words, how are trans* subjects made intelligible/unintelligible within the
public discourse through activist work and community building? The article draws on data generated
during fieldwork both online and on site in Indonesia and from interviews in Iran in order to examine
how misrecognition of trans* subjectivities is discursively constructed within different sectors of
society, making some voices and lives of trans* people unintelligible and to some extent invisible.
Particularly, within the Iranian context, misrecognition of trans* subjectivities takes place in different
trajectories of trans* activism, whereas in Indonesia, it has mostly been limited to religious institutions
and civil society in general. In both cases, misrecognition affects the livability of trans* people and how
they are constituted within society. This article therefore aims to contribute to a more nuanced
understanding of the workings of (mis)recognition of trans* subjectivities by drawing on data from
two different cultural contexts that are both Muslim-dominated societies and considered as within the
Global South.
Politics of (un)intelligibility and (mis)recognition: Which lives count as livable/
grievable?
In the latter part of the 20th century, identity politics have increasingly been taken up by various social
movements in which it is emphasized that social (cultural) recognition of individuals and groups is an
important factor of creating a just society. However, there is no agreement pertaining to definitions
and understanding of recognition, and different perspectives have been put forward within the
literature. The first perspective is the Hegelian model of identity, which has been applied by Charles
Taylor and Alex Honneth in their discussion on recognition. This model connects recognition to
identity formation and, as Judith Butler (2004) has explained, “links desire with recognition, claiming
that desire is always a desire for recognition and that it is only through the experience of recognition
that any of us becomes constituted as socially viable beings” (p. 2). In other words, individuals desire to
be recognized by others to embody or take up a particular social (cultural) identity. Identity is
therefore relational, depending on how others see us and acknowledge us on the one hand, and the
social context one is located within, on the other hand. For Charles Taylor (1994), being recognized is
“vital human need” (p. 26), and not being recognized as a subject contributes to social injustice. Thus,
being recognized is an important aspect of constituency of identity formation. Also, not being
recognized is being devalued as a subject by the dominant culture and one’s identity is rendered
invalid, which Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth (2003) have termed misrecognition.
Judith Butler frames (mis)recognition as a site of power that operates through hetero-/cis-
normative framework or what she calls “cultural intelligibility.” It defines and determines who can
be recognized as a legitimate subject. To be included and gain recognizability within a particular
societal (discursive) context, therefore, subjects need to repeatedly perform the hegemonic discourse
of hetero-/cis-normativity as the main paradigms of a legitimate form of subjectivity. However, any
trouble with these paradigms is considered nonnormative and unnatural and consequently the subject
will be illegible and unreal. In other words, bodies that matter are recognized “according to prevailing
social norms,” which as Butler has argued are “socially articulated and changeable” (Butler, 2004, p. 2).
The bodies who do not matter are rendered abject. Their lives and materiality are understood to be
outside of recognizability and legitimate existence. They fail to materialize and remain within the
50 J. I. KJARAN AND Z. SAEIDZADEH
domain of “unspeakability” (Butler, 1993), and are “not considered lives at all (Butler, 2004, p. 25).
Thus, through the working of the heterosexual matrix, some bodies are given recognition while it is
withdrawn from others. Both giving and withholding recognition take part in “undoing persons,”
which then defines the realm of their (un)intelligibility within a given culture and society (Butler, 2004,
p. 2). Furthermore, intelligibility understood as being produced by recognition is also a question of
liveability and grieveability. As emphasized by Butler (2004), these sites of power determine who gets
recognized and read as a valuable subject and is thus also remembered and grieved, and who falls
outside of the cultural frame of what is to be an intelligible subject.
The second perspective of recognition or the lack of it emphasizes the social and political structures
of society, as explained by Nancy Fraser (1995). For Fraser, recognition is to be acknowledged a status
within the society. Thus, misrecognition occurs when individuals or groups are denied a status of
being “full partner” in society because they are subordinated and marginalized by institutionalized
processes and factors. In other words, these members of society are denied “parity participation”
because they are defined as “deficient” in comparison to some other groups that are regarded as
“normative.” Fraser uses the term “status” instead of identity, emphasizing that misrecognition of
status has its roots in political and social structures rather than in cultural differences, individual
subjectivity, or identity. However, she does not reject the notion of identity per se with regard to
misrecognition and admits that groups sometimes make “a demand for the cultural recognition of
their collective identity” (Fraser, 2003, cited in Hines, 2013, p. 10).
We draw attention to the importance of the politics of (mis)recognition and (un)intelligibility in
the section on trans* activism in Indonesia and that in Iran, which have developed differently during
the past decades. Nonetheless, as Fraser has pointed out, we are aware of the pitfalls of focusing on
cultural politics of recognition alone. We therefore address the economic struggle and material reality
of trans* subjects and how activists try to address economic violence produced through the regime of
misrecognition. For example, in both Iran and Indonesia trans* subjects are often denied employment,
housing, and access to health care. They are more likely to be laid off and discriminated against at
work. Thus, socioeconomic rights have always been part of the struggle for recognition and will
continue to be so.
Methodology
This article draws on two sets of data gathered from two different research projects conducted in
Indonesia and Iran. The data on Iran were collected through 32 face-to-face semistructured interviews
for a Ph.D. project during two fieldwork trips to Tehran in 2014 and 2015, as well as 10 semistructured
telephone/mobile interviews with people in Iran during 2017. Interviews were conducted with trans
men, trans women, surgeons, psychologists, trans* activists, a jurist, and a journalist, who all lived in
Iran at the time of interviews. Initial contacts in Tehran were made through the website manager of the
Center for Protection of Iranian Transsexuals (Mahtaa) and a gynecological surgeon in Tehran. The
data from the Indonesian research project were generated during multisite fieldwork in Indonesia in
2020, focusing on Yogyakarta, Bali, and Banda Aceh. Due to the COVID pandemic, the fieldwork and
data collection had to be moved to online spaces. The data collected consists of fieldnotes, interviews
with activists, photos, and other documents. Furthermore, during the online fieldwork, the first author
was a member of a several queer/trans* online/chat groups, through which they gained a deeper
understanding of queer/trans* activism in contemporary Indonesia. The Indonesian case study
focuses on one trans* activist and draws on interviews conducted with them during the fieldwork in
2020.
Thematic analysis was used to organize and analyze the interviews, which were then reread and
interpreted. Themes are identified inductively regarding the issues in relation to the research questions
and at some level of prevalence across the whole data. Thematic analysis searches for themes that
emerge from the data or information to describe the phenomenon. The identified themes in the data
become categories for analysis (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006). Moreover, the method of
STUDIES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY 51
thematic analysis allows the researcher to move back and forth between different phases of the process
of analysis (Gareth et al., 2017). We used a six-phase analytic process that is introduced by Terry et al.
(2017). These phases are (1) familiarizing with the data, (2) generating codes, (3) constructing themes,
(4) reviewing potential themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) producing the report.
We as researchers come from different locations and are positioned differently on the transnational
circuits of gender and sexuality. The first author comes from a small island in northern Europe and
identifies as queer. The second author is a heterosexual woman from the east part of Iran. We
understand ethics as relational, situated, and procedural. This entails that ethical questions should
be viewed holistically and be constantly referred to during the research process, from data gathering to
publication. We have adhered to ethical considerations during our research, and due to the topic of
our research on trans* activism we have been conscious about how knowledge is produced and for
whom, particularly in the light of the past erasure of trans* subjectivities. Our interlocutors and the
members of the trans* community who participated in our research were active in the research process
in the sense that they not only took the role of providing information (data) but were also co-
producers of knowledge. Furthermore, as the topic of this article is on recognition and the workings
of “undoing,” some of the participants wanted to be “seen” as real and therefore refused to use
pseudonyms. However, to protect them, we changed some details and facts pertaining to their
circumstances, but at the same time tried our best to honor their wish to remain seen.
Examples of trans* activism in Indonesia and Iran
In this section we give examples of different trajectories of trans* activism in Indonesia and Iran in
order to draw attention to how politics of recognition/misrecognition and intelligibility/unintellig-
ibility are framed and practiced among trans* activists with the aim of increasing the livability of trans*
subjects. First, we discuss how religion, piety, and the practices of normativity are employed by warias
2
attending a religious boarding school in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Further, we address the workings of
trans* activism in Iran focusing on the normative knowledge produced and advocated by so-called
experts in medicine, jurisprudence, and art on recognition of trans* in Iran. Then we discuss how such
activism has made some trans* people intelligible and their lives visible, while it has rendered some
unintelligible and invisible in society. Finally, we draw on online activism and current trans* politics
that demands intelligibility of diverse trans* subject.
Politics of intelligibility: Piety, religion, and practices of normality in Indonesia
Trans* activism in Indonesia is mostly conducted by community members. Both waria and transpria
are today part of the growing LGBTIQ community in Indonesia and run their own organizations
(NGOs) and support groups. However, queer/trans* activism has become more precarious and
dangerous since 2016 due to increased hostility and violence from various religious groups and the
authorities toward the queer community (Wijaya, 2020). It can be argued that this development is due
to increased visibility of queer issues in the public discourse. This “paradox of visibility” (Barnhurst,
2007) has therefore affected the trans* community and in many ways made the lives of waria and
transpria publicly more visible but at the same fed into increased hate speech and transphobia, mostly
within online spaces. It also needs to be noted that in contrast to Iran, trans* issues in Indonesia are
not constructed as a medical issue, as only a minority of, for example, warias undergo gender
reassignment surgery. Thus, the medical discourse does not feed as much into the trans* activist
discours,e although this has been changing during the last decade.
2
Since 1978 the term waria, consisting of the words pria (man) and wanita (woman), has frequently been used in Indonesia for
individuals who are born as male but identify as female.
52 J. I. KJARAN AND Z. SAEIDZADEH
It is the international women’s day when I meet Rully, a trans* activist, at a café in Yogyakarta. She
is dressed in a red blouse and gray dress and has put up a bit of makeup. I tell her about my research.
After that she tells me about her life and work—mixing Bahasa and English:
I am born in South Sulawesi. After I graduated from secondary school, I enter the world of waria (dunia waria)
and started to wear women’s clothes, act and behave like a woman. No one wants to be trans*, this is just my
nature, my identity and there is nothing wrong with that. I then started my career as a teacher at an elementary
school in East Nusa Tenggara and taught there for 10 years. The kids called me ibu guru (miss teacher), and that
made me happy and more accepted.
She then moved back to her hometown and became a member of the local legislative assembly, after
which she moved to Java, close to the capital Jakarta, and worked there for 10 years. After that she
moved to Yogyakarta and joined the trans* community there and worked on various issues such as
HIV prevention and helping her fellow trans* sisters and brothers:
My aims are to show that LGBT, especially trans* people are not different from heterosexual. And it is important
to show the diversity which is in accordance with the guidelines of the Indonesian state—unity in diversity. Now
I focus on issues such as working against discrimination from radical Islamic (religious) groups who do not like
our organization [Rully is referring here to the pesantren she is a member of and is supporting. The pesantren
consists of warias (trans* women) who meet to study the Quran and pray together]. We [the member of the
pesantren] want to show other people in Indonesia that we as warias follow the Muslim law, and what is
important for us is our faith to God. The pesantren has been attacked by radical Islamic groups because they
think we are deviating. But we continue our work because it is important. You know, it can be so difficult for
trans* Muslim to attend to their religion and pray in public spaces. So, we offer them space to pray and come
together. It is therefore a shame that radical groups always try to oppress and hate our community. We just want
to be treated the same way as other people.
Rully then brings me to the pesantren. We finally arrive after going through some narrow alleys and
streets. We enter the main building and are greeted by Shinta, who is the manager of the school
and one of its founders. She is all-embracing and welcomes me. She is obviously the woman in charge
and others who are there respect her a lot, bowing when they shake her hand. There are lot of people
today as it is Sunday and it’s time for common prayer soon (maghrib), and after that there will be
a lecture and discussion about some religious themes. I sit down with Shinta and she tells me a bit
about the school. I notice that two young guys are taking photo of us. Shinta asks them to come and
talk to me and I ask one of them to take a picture of me and Shinta. They do so and then I ask them
what they are doing here. They tell me that this is a project that they are doing here. They are students
of photography, and their project is about documenting Shinta’s life, and after that they will have an
exhibition. I ask them why they decided to do this project and one of them tells me:
We want to show Indonesians that warias can be religious and should be accepted by the community. They
should be included.
They also want to draw attention to the diversity of lives in Indonesia. I then ask them if it was easy to
have this project approved at their school:
No. Our teacher did not agree to it and said that we should focus more on diversity and human rights. We did not
agree and just decided to continue with this project. You know, in Indonesia, there are always ways to get around
bureaucracy. So, we find our ways of doing this project.
Call for prayers begins, and some participants have already finished wudu [religious cleansing]. Shinta
leaves me and then comes back some minutes later, fully covered, being prepared for the maghrib.
I hardly see her face now and she has also put some trousers on to cover herself even more. Then the
whole group goes into the main room, which has been transformed into a praying room. The warias
are more in the back rows and the men are in the front rows. But everybody prays together—in one
room, warias and the men from the Islamic University. The ceremony starts and is led by one of the
male volunteers from the Islamic University. The praying takes about 15 minutes, and afterward
a member from the Nahdlatul Ulama, which is in a strategic alliance with the boarding school and
STUDIES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY 53
gives it support, gives a talk about the five pillars of Islam. I notice that most of the warias sit close to
the lecturer, take notes and listen carefully, and participate in the discussion afterward. I feel that
participating in the discussion is important for them and empowering. They are somehow recognized
within that liminal space as both warias and religious subjects.
Discussion: The case of Indonesia
The case study draws attention to how trans* activists such as Rully discursively frame recognition of
trans* bodies/subjects. It also highlights how these same bodies/subjects are constructed within the
dominant discourse and how recognition can be achieved and/or imagined within these discursive
frames, displaying what kind of discursive “tools” trans* activists have in their struggle for recognition.
One of those discursive “tools” applied by Rully is to expand the cultural frame of intelligibility for
trans* subjects, which are often only read as intelligible within spaces and activities constructed at the
margin of society. For example, livability of warias is most often limited to sex work, working in the
salons, and the entertainment sector. However, as we can see in the first part of the case study, this
kind of cultural interpellation in terms of livability is resisted by Rully, and it can be argued that
through her own activities and activism she tries to change the cultural meaning of how warias are
discursively constructed and read. As such, warias can be religious, traditional, be elementary school
teachers and members of the local legislative body. Becoming “normal” and being involved in
“normal” work are therefore emphasized by Rully as the case study highlights. This is further
emphasized by Rully when she mentions that when she started to teach at an elementary school
after she had begun to live as waria the students referred to her as ibu guru or miss teacher. Thus, it can
be argued that Rully’s activism for recognition of warias as “normal” citizen by extending the limits of
what is means to be waria in contemporary Indonesia can be understood as queering (disturbing) the
dominant cultural frame of intelligibility. However, at the same time, the dominant discourses of
cisheteronormativity, which marginalizes trans* subjects and renders them unintelligible as “normal”
subjects, is cited and thus strengthened. This is exactly the double-working of discourse as Foucault
has pointed out: It produces subjects but at the same time it exercises disciplinary power over them. In
other words, by disassociating from the dominant discourse that constitutes warias as intelligible only
within spaces and activities, that same oppressive discourse is reproduced, and even strengthened—
unwittingly contributing to what can be termed as dividing practices in a Foucauldian sense, creating
the category of the “good” versus the “bad” waria. The “good” warias are framed within the
cisheteronorm and become part of the nation, while the “bad” ones are only intelligible through
their abjected and marginalized status. In this respect, the concept of transnormativity has been used
recently by some scholars, drawing on the theoretical work of homonormativity (Mowlabocus, 2021;
Duggan, 2002). This could be explored further within the Indonesian context but is not within the
scope of the article. However, it needs to be emphasized that Rully and her fellow waria activists are
not intentionally feeding into the transnormative discourse or the oppressive discourse of cisheter-
onormativity in their activities to gain recognition for trans* people. It simply draws attention to the
ambiguity of discourse and how it can work at the same time as both liberating and oppressive. A good
example of this are the religious discourses, which are, from the secular perspective dominant in the
global north, a source of oppression for trans* subjects but can also create a liminal space of
possibilities and recognition.
As can be read from the case study, the pesantren creates a community of belonging where the
warias can practice their religion without being read as strange or out of place. In other words, they
become intelligible as religious and pious subjects. Within the space of the pesantren, Rully and the
other warias engage in activities that can be understood as what Saba Mahmood (2005) has termed
politics of piety. This kind of activism does not necessarily construct the subject as agentic in Western
secular terms of self-fulfillment and self-empowerment, but more in a religious sense by following the
Muslim law and showing faith in God. Thus, during religious ceremonies and discussion at the
pesantren, the warias adhered to the Islamic norms through bodily performances and practices. For
54 J. I. KJARAN AND Z. SAEIDZADEH
example, male members of the Islamic University lead the prayers. Furthermore, the warias are placed
at the back while the men are in the front rows. From a secular understanding of agency, it could be
argued that by succumbing to the religious discourse, they become entangled in their own oppression,
particularly in light of the violence and hateful rhetoric raised against them by some religious
organizations in Indonesia. However, viewing these undertakings from the perspective of piety in
which faith, virtue, and hope creates imaginary spaces for the warias to become intelligible and
recognized, at least within the liminal space of the pesantren, another type of agency emerges, giving
them a sense of belonging, as well as a feeling of being included in the community of believers. In other
words, being different but still the same in the eyes of God was emphasized by Rully and Shinta in my
conversation with them. The students working on their photo project also referred to difference and
diversity in which their aim is to show that taking up the subject position of waria does not exclude
religiosity and they should therefore be accepted and recognized as such within society. Diversity of
religious subjects is therefore emphasized, and the focus in terms of agency is not on self-fulfillment
and empowerment from the Western secular perspective but instead on piety and of becoming
a virtuous subject adhering to the Muslim law. In that sense, the dominant religious discourse is not
queered or disrupted but instead accepted and reappropriated in order to construct waria subjectiv-
ities as intelligible.
Politics of intelligibility: Medical jurisprudence, performative activism, and trans normativity in
Iran
Trans* social movement in contemporary Iran can be traced back to the early years of Islamic revolution
(1979) when people were being arrested in private and public spheres by the Islamic state’s militia (basij)
for their nonnormative gender and sexual practices. Activism for the rights of trans* people was then
formed through individual actions and gatherings organized in private homes, which were frequently
raided by the basij (Najmabadi, 2014). Maryam Khatoon Molkara, a trans woman, was one of those
individuals who continued advocating for trans* people’s acceptance and recognition in society, which
she had started during the Pahlavis. Maryam Khatoon’s advocacy evolved around religious and legal
recognition of gender affirmation surgery (GAS) and trans* people in Iranian society. She persistently
lobbied with Grand Ayatollahs including Ayatollah Khomeini, who was the supreme leader of the time
to recognize trans* people and their need to GAS. Maryam Khatoon’s advocacy resulted in the issue of
a fatwa (religious legal opinion) by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1982 permitting the surgery under Islamic
law. Khomeini’s fatwas nullified Iran´s medical council’s ban on GAS for non-intersex people, which had
previously been decided in 1976. As is apparent in the work of Maryam Khatoon, the advocacy and
activism for trans* people’s recognition in Iranian society have involved not only trans* people, but also
so-called experts—whether in the medical profession, surgeons, Islamic jurists, academics, or artists.
Thus, different discourses and practices for recognition and acceptance of trans* subjects are formed
among experts and trans* people at the same time. Above all, contemporary trans* activism has been
more active online than it has been on the ground due to the state restrictions.
Current medical discourses that are used to advocate for recognition of trans* people in Iran
construct trans* people as patients of gender dysphoria (Najafpour and Najafpour, 2018). It is through
such medical positioning that trans* subjects have been advocated by Islamic jurists and medical
professionals to be accepted in society. Contrary to “homosexuality,” which is not understood as
a viable reason for bodily modification, “transsexuality” is always constructed through medical
intervention based on diagnosis and symptoms of gender dysphoria (Aghabikloo et al., 2012;
Vahedi et al., 2017). This perspective is confirmed in the following quote from Dr. Jafarabadi,
a gynecologist surgeon who sees herself as an advocate for trans* people´s rights in Tehran:
Diagnosis is necessary and must be done [. . .], the need to change one’s body is symptomatic of transsexuality.
Someone who comes to me and asks for the most difficult and painful surgeries to dispose of her breasts and
womb is not a homosexual. Above all, a homosexual accepts his/her body, but seeks same-sex relations. If she/he
demands surgery, then she/he is not a homosexual anymore.
STUDIES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY 55
Islamic jurists in Iran, who permit GAS under shi’a jurisprudence, base their understanding on the
medical discourse within the field of medical jurisprudence, a novel area of knowledge production
within Shi‘a Islam that is limited to permissibility of the surgery due to incongruence of the soul and
the body under the Islamic rulings (Kalantari and Ibrahimi, 2011; Kariminia, 2010, 2012). Thus, their
knowledge production and advocacy revolve only around the surgery and focus on people who wish to
undergo surgical transition. Islamic jurisprudential and medical discourses make the status of trans*
people who do not undergo GAS and who do not identify as heterosexual unintelligible.
In a telephone interview November 2015, in Tehran, Hujatul-Islam Mohammad Mehdi Kariminia,
who is known as the most “trans-friendly” clergy in Iran, and who advocates for trans* people’s rights
as an “activist behind the scenes,” described how he advocates for trans* people based on medical
understanding of trans*:
I explain to families, especially those who are traditional believers, that trans* people suffer from a disease and the
Islamic law allows them to undergo the surgery, so that they can accept to be supportive. However, all families do
not think the same way. Whether it is shar’i (Islamic) or not, the families of trans* people oppose the surgery.
Although GAS is advocated by the medical professionals and is allowed under Islamic law, this does
not guarantee social and legal recognition, nor does it guarantee access to employment, health care,
and financial and psychosocial support, as expressed by Niaz,
3
a trans woman who had not undergone
GAS at the time of interview:
They [the state] keep saying it is shari [allowed by shari’a], it is shar’i, it is only the surgery that is shar’i. They do
not care about the rest of our needs after that or even before the surgery. They could just give us permission to
work while we are going through transition, for example.
Trans* people who complete the process of legal transition receive their changed documents (i.e.,
identification document, military exemption card) marked with gender dysphoria. This form of status
misrecognition makes it harder for trans* people to participate in society, particularly in terms of
employability and other economic activities, often restricting trans* subjectivities to marginalized
spaces and activities. These concerns have been raised in sociological debates
4
and research in Iran
since the early 2010. However, most studies emphasize trans* people as subjects of medical discourse
who need acceptance in society.
Cultural activism for the recognition of trans* people in society has made its way through cinema,
TV, and theater. However, there has been an emphasis on trans men’s visibility, for example, on
national state TV and in cinema, more than for trans women. The reason for this is that the latter are
often misrecognized as “fake trans” (Saeidzadeh, 2020) and gay men and thus live with highly
stigmatized status in society (O’Dell, 2019). To illustrate our point, we refer to two recent films and
a theater play produced with the aim of awareness raising and advocacy on trans* subjects, ‘ayenehay
rooberoo’ (Facing Mirrors) (2012),
5
‘nafasi sard’ (Cold Breath) (2018),
6
and ‘abi mayil bi soriati’
(Pink-Like Blue),
7
all of which are being criticized by the trans* community as well as trans* activists
in Iran, first, for failing to show the process of transition accurately, and second, for focusing on the
surgery with an emphasis on trans men in a heteronormative perception (O’Dell, 2019, p. 160).
Although the Pink-Like Blue play questions the biological deterministic of gender and illuminates
varieties of interrelating social issues that construct one’s sense of gender other than genitalia,
8
it
nonetheless focuses on the surgical transition and dichotomous understanding of masculinity and
femininity.
3
Telephone interview in 2017.
4
Seminar on “The Lived Experience of Iranian Transsexuals” organized by the Sociology of Medicine and Health Department,
University of Tehran, 2014. The same department organized another seminar on “The Interdisciplinary Views on Transsexualism in
Iran” in 2015.
5
Written and directed by Negar Azarbayjani.
6
Written and directed by Abbas Raziji.
7
Written and directed by Sanaz Bayan; this went on stage from December 2017 to March 2018 in Tehran.
8
Bayan’s interview with Ibna news agency, https://www.ibna.ir/fa/longint/278105, retrieved September 25, 2022.
56 J. I. KJARAN AND Z. SAEIDZADEH
Despite the dominant discourse of pathologiation, trans* people who were interviewed for this
study do not challenge it as a part of their advocacy for recognition and intelligibility in society, while
they reject pathologization of their status, because it is seen as the only way for trans* people—that is,
patients with an incurable disease—to negotiate their existence and needs within law, society, and
family. In fact, the pathologization discourse is appropriated by trans* activists to claim citizenship
rights, that is, to be intelligible subjects. An example of this can be found in an interview with
Mohammad Ali Taherkhani,
9
the director of the NGO Anjomani hemayat az bimarani malali jinsi
in Tehran at the time of the interview. As a trans man activist, he said:
The law should give us the right to citizenship (haghi shahrvandi) like other citizens. They [the state authorities]
don’t have to do much, treat us like patients with rare disease [. . .]. It does not matter if they [the state authorities]
want to help us as patients of some sort of rare disease or whatever [. . .] we want our citizenship to be recognized
by the law.
In 2007, due to the work of activists online and offline, a group of experts including a psychotherapist,
a jurist, a surgeon, and a few trans* people met with the members of the parliament at the medical
commission to discuss and advocate for a bill that can address the legality of GAS, as well as the
medical, educational, and financial needs of trans* people (cf. Najmabadi, 2014). However, the bill has
not yet been publicly discussed nor has it been negotiated further in the parliament—indicating the
societal (cultural) reluctance to recognize the needs and rights of trans* people in Iran.
In addition to various social media platforms such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and
Facebook, a very well-established Web-based organization with the name of Mahtaa: Center for the
Protection of Iranian Transsexuals (Markazi himayatyat az transsexualay Irani) started working in
2011 as an online organization supporting trans* people. The death of his trans* friend prompted
Moh, one of the founders of Mahtaa, to create a space not only for trans* people to receive support, but
also for raising awareness in society. As one of its advocacy initiatives, Mahtaa translated the work of
scholars such as Judith Butler in Persian and helped to introduce terms such as cisgender, queer and
heterosexuality into Persian vocabulary. Mahtaa’s work was receiving a lot of attention in society, to
the extent that the state authorities forced Mahtaa to discontinue its online activities in 2017. Moh,
10
who was the manager of Mahtaa at the time of interview in 2015, said:
I dare to claim that it was due to Mahtaa’s work that the term dujinsi was replaced with “transsexual” or “trans.” It
is thanks to Mahtaa that people know what sex, or gender identity means.
The term dujinsi in Persian literally means a person with two sexes and denotes an insulting and
degrading status. It has been used for many decades to refer to bisexual, transsexual, transgender, and
intersex or hermaphrodite persons in Iran (Najmabadi, 2014). Mahtaa’s advocacy for abandoning the
use of such a term is a manifestation of activism for recognition of trans* people’s status.
Unlike the pathologization discourse, the discourse of human rights is noticeably absent among
medics, jurists, and artists. The interviews with trans* people also indicate avoiding such discourses
due to its politicization effect. As Taraneh, a trans woman activist, explained:
Don’t you ever mention human rights when you work on this issue, because as soon as you do, you make it
political and then you are in big trouble. We are keeping away from going in that direction; it is not good for us.
Moh reflected on a view similar to that of Taraneh about not using human rights discourses in Mahtaa:
They [trans* people] think human rights discourse politicizes their being in the country and exposes them to the
foreign media misrepresentation.
In the interviews with trans* people, it was clear that almost everybody avoided being identified as
a member of trans* community or being associated with trans* people in public—that is, in the actual
world, as opposed to the virtual world, where it seemed to be safe to hang out. This is further
9
Face-to-face interview in 2015 in Tehran.
10
Face-to-face interview in 2015 in Tehran.
STUDIES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY 57
confirmed by Moh: “It is not safe for trans* people to gather in one place [physically], because it will
risk their safety.”
Discussion: The case of Iran
Trans normativity
Trans normativity deems some trans* people’s subjectivation and practices of gender and gender
relations as legitimate while making some other trans* people invisible and unintelligible (Johnson,
2015, 2016; Nicolazzo, 2016). We maintain that the medical discourse, as the dominant and institu-
tionalized discourse in Iran, is adopted by what we call “expert activism,” including medics and jurists,
academics, and so-called cultural activism including movie directors and play writers, which patho-
logize trans* people’s status in their advocacy for the recognition in society. Such activism, we argue,
reinforces a normative understanding of trans* that is to undergo surgical transition from a man to
a woman and vice versa, which limits trans* embodiment to symptoms and diagnosis, but also creates
a medical model as the one and only way to be trans*. Thus, the status of trans* people who do not fit
into this model, drawing on Fraser, is misrecognized, amounting to invisibility and unintelligibility of
trans* subjects. We argue that this kind of advocacy that is based on trans normativity not only
pathologizes trans* people, but also restricts trans* people’s agency, makes them invisible, and limits
their access to resources (Fraser, 2001). In other words, misrecognition of trans* social status leads to
social invisibility or distorted social visibility, as argued by Medina (2013). Moreover, we argue that
advocacy for trans* people under the category of mental disorder not only distorts social visibly of
trans* people but also jeopardizes their position in the family (Saeidzadeh, 2020).
Furthermore, we uphold that the normative understanding of trans* has not only amounted to
dominant discourses of normativity at structural, institutional, and individual levels (medical system,
Islamic law, academia, state TV, cinema and theater) in Iran, but also has contributed to status
misrecognition of trans* subjects in feminists’ discourses. Some Iranian feminists have manifested
positions similar to trans normativity. For example, feminists outside Iran (cf. Hashemi, 2018;
Najmabadi, 2008, 2014; Jafari, 2014; Bahreini, 2012; Azoulay, 2009) claim that people who do not
abide with gendered roles and practices and do not want to undergo surgical transition are gay men who
live under the shade of a “trans medical certificate.” Moreover, influenced by homonormative, radical,
and old-fashioned feminist ideas, some feminist activists (cf. Rahbari, 2016; Amin, 2016) argue that
surgical transition among trans* people is a patriarchal force, and thus a harmful cultural practice. Such
approaches resemble trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF), which we argue can also be char-
acterized as trans normativity. The feminist activism inside Iran, on the other hand, has often avoided
including trans* people in its projects, being rooted in cisgender and heterosexuality (Payghambarzadeh
2019), which exclude perception as well as recognition of other subjects such as trans*.
Trans* politics
Social activism in Iran has remained alive more online than on the ground, especially in the wake of
digitalization and the Internet. Despite the Islamic state’s massive control of the Internet and mobile
technology for decades, the Internet has become the strongest site for activism (cf. Sreberny and
Khiabany, 2010). This includes vibrant online trans* activism led by young and well-informed trans*
people who reject misrecognition and unintelligibility of their status based on the medical model of
trans normativity. Initiatives of advocacy on social media (i.e., Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram)
through texts, audio, and videos by trans* people have created vital virtual activism.
We argue that trans* activists’ discourses and practices of struggle in Iran are formed around recognition
of trans* status as members of society rather than identity politics. Furthermore, the interviews show that
the discourses of “needs” are more prevalent than the “rights” discourses, as also addressed by other
scholars (cf. Najmabadi, 2014; O’Dell, 2019). Najmabadi (2016, p. 187) argues that trans* people do not use
human rights discourse in Iran because they have received “their badge of citizenship and social recognition
with the enabling fatwa.” We disagree with Najmabadi, arguing that the reasons for avoiding the discourses
58 J. I. KJARAN AND Z. SAEIDZADEH
of “human rights” among trans* activists are to prevent politicizing their cause and to criticize a universal
conceptualization of their experiences, knowledge, and needs (Kollman and Waites, 2009).
In contrast to what Najmabadi argues, the interviews, especially the one with Mohammad Ali
Taherkhani, the director of the Association for the Protection of Gender Dysphoric Patients, show not
only that trans* people have not received their badge of citizenship, but also that they are denied basic
needs in society. Najmabadi (2016, p. 187) further explains that contrary to trans* activism that does not
oppose the state, women’s groups’ activism in Iran is shaped around “human rights” discourse in
opposition to the state, which she explains as the reason for why trans* activists do not side with feminist
politics. We think that Najmabadi’s position toward trans* activists in Iran is permeated with epistemic
misrecognition and unintelligibility of trans* subjects in such a way that she turns a blind eye not only to
various forms of activism for social and legal recognition, but also to trans* people’s struggle to make
a variety of trans* subjects’ experiences more intelligible in society. Another demonstration of negligence
on Najmabadi’s part is that she places women’s activism and trans* activism in opposition to each other
when in fact the politics of the latter cannot be separated from those of the former en route to social justice.
Conclusion
Trajectories of trans* activism in Iran and Indonesia have taken different paths and developed differently
during the past decades. What they have in common are how they are framed around politics of
recognition/misrecognition and intelligibility/unintelligibility and practiced among trans* activists with
the aim of increasing the livability of trans* subjects. In Iran, trans* activism has taken form and shape
through various institutionalized discourses and practices including medical, jurisprudential, art, and to
some extend feminist discourses. These discourses have collectively (re)produced a form of distorted
knowledge about trans* people that makes them disadvantaged and invisible in society.
In this article we have argued that the kinds of misrecognition found in the discourses of advocacy
for trans* people in Iran have (re)produced normative understanding of trans* that affects intelligibility
and visibility of trans* people who practice gender and sexuality in a way that does not fit the normative
discourses. In Indonesia, intelligibility and normative discourses are framed within religiosity, and, as
we discussed in the article, becoming a religious subject created both meaning and belonging. We have
discussed that contrary to the Iranian context, trans* in Indonesia is not constructed as a medical
subject, as only a minority of, for example, warias undergo gender reassignment surgery. Thus, the
medical discourse does not feed as much into the today’s trans* activist discourses. Thus, in both
Indonesia and Iran, trans* people try to resist misrecognition through different trajectories. In both
cultural contexts, trans* activism can therefore be understood as politics of intelligibility with the aim of
creating a liminal space of possibilities for recognition of trans* subjectivities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflicts of interest are reported by the authors(s).
Notes on contributors
Jón Ingvar Kjaran (they/their), Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology/sociology of education at the University of Iceland,
School of Education, in the Faculty of Diversity and Education, currently leading two research projects on gender
violence funded by the Icelandic Research Fund. Their research focus is on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, queer issues,
and violence.
Zara Saeidzadeh (she/her), Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher in Gender Studies currently working on violence against
trans* women in Sweden. Her research focuses on socio-legal study of trans* citizenship drawing on status recognition
and needs of trans* citizen within intimate relations, family, employment, and activism.
STUDIES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY 59
ORCID
Jón Ingvar Kjaran http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6221-6382
Zara Saeidzadeh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1464-8874
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