Being a Muslim and transgender

By admin-s On Nov 21, 2014

They are not regarded just as males who want to dress as females (for fun or to deceive), but something that are innate or in-born in them. If it is in-born, that means they are created this way.

ARJ, MMO

I am a female-to-male transgender. I am also a Muslim. Since the Court of Appeals judgment there has been many things written and spoken about us. Those from the legal, from the religious and from the medical standpoint. But the voice of the transgenders appears to be muted, while everybody else talks loudly about us.

That is why I have decided to write. But I write with a pseudonym knowing how cruel some people can become about things they do not understand, things they fear. I do not want my family to be worried for my safety. I do not want my mother to suffer because of how people will treat her son.

People misunderstand us, thinking that we just want to cross-dress for fun or to deceive. Some people think we are sick in the head and must be treated and cured. They used to lobotomise us in the West, along with the homosexuals, a procedure condemned today as barbaric.

For a start, let me clarify that I am not a homosexual. Transgender people are not necessarily homosexuals. There is a clear difference between ones gender identity (what one feels deeply inside about ones gender) and one’s affectionate preference (what one prefers one’s partner’s gender to be).

I was born with the clear knowledge that I am male. However, my body’s sex does not conform with the heart’s knowledge. It took many years of running away from this feeling, from this body, and a lot of pain to arrive home to this fact. I have forced myself to be a girl, a woman — to be who I am not. I have also sought psychological help, but to no avail. Finally, I reflected, if I cannot accept myself, how can I accept God? It was like I was going against my “naluri”, my instincts, my God-given spirit.

It was only when I accepted myself, as male, that my real journey begins — of healing and coming back to Allah, my Creator, my Sustainer, my Source. I realise that I am a transgender person, and I am created this way. Being a transgender does not make me any less a Muslim. In fact, it has made me closer to God.

There are many like me on this journey of self-acceptance. Many of us have undergone gender reconstruction surgeries and hormone therapies to feel at home in our bodies. To become whole. And many who have not — not have the means or opportunity, (because the technology was not there yet) or do not want to go through the pain of surgeries and other personal reasons.

There is a whole medical knowledge on transgenderism. We are known to have Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or now known now as Gender Dsyphoria (GD). GID or GD is categorised under the World Health Organisation International Classification of Disease (Version 10) under code F64. (1)

The medical fraternity has recognised that the only treatment that brings congruity to mind and body is to allow people with GD to live as the gender they inherently feels. Many persons with GD who suppress that need, or are coerced into not living as their inherent gender become victims of depression and even suicide. But once they are able to live as their inherent gender, they became normal, functioning, and balanced.

Transgenderism also occurs in almost all known cultures and traditions, including the Muslim tradition. Some Muslim scholars have written about the division of gender in Islam into four groups: male, female, hermaphrodites (khunsa) and mukhannis or mukhannas. The last two terms refer to persons having male organs who appear female in mannerisms and dress as females. Mukkhanis want to change their biological sex while mukkhanas do not.

In Islam, the scholarly analysis of the Quran, Hadiths, and Sunnahs, resulted in a fatwa to allow sex change surgery for transgender persons. This fatwa was issued by the mufti of the foremost university in Islamic scholarship, the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, on June 8th, 1988. It was triggered by an actual case of a transgender student of the university who was allowed to have a sexual reassignement surgery (SRS) (2). Besides Egypt, other Islamic countries which allow persons with Gender Dysphoria to change their sex surgically to match their inherent genders are Iran and Pakistan.

Although the terms mukhannas, mukhannis and khunsa are not mentioned in the Holy Quran, according to some authours, the Qur’an clearly recognises that there are some people who are neither male nor female.