Sex in Change: Configurations
of Sexuality and Gender in
Contemporary Iran

This talk focuses on current contours of transexuality in Iran and considers the particular

mapping of trans-identities and lives. How do legality of transexuality and condemnation of

same-sex desires and practices shape sexual subjectivities in Iran? How do state-codified

notions of proper public manhood and womanhood affect sexualities? The talk will look at

how the confluence of classical Islamic discourse on the “true sex” of every human body

with the psycho-medicalized notion of “truth of sex” -- that a natural biological sex

determines one’s gender behavior and sexual desire — has given a powerful impetus to

acceptability of “curing” transexuality through sex-change medical interventions.

Earl and Edna Stice Memorial Lectureship in Social Science Sponsored by the Women Studies Department

Afsaneh Najmabadi

The Francis Lee Higginson Professor of

History and of Studies of Women, Gender,

and Sexuality, Harvard University

Wednesday. January 21st 2009

Johnson Hall, Room 102

7:00 p.m.

Reception to follow