Although homosexuality is banned in Iran, more people "diagnosed" as transsexuals have sex change operations in Iran than in any other country besides Thailand.
This strange statistic occurred because several Iranian medical doctors made a case for the "human rights" of cross-gendered people, and succeeded in getting the government to pay for half of the sex change operation fee.
I think this is one of those subversive acts by smart Iranian laymen who are possibly also non-Muslims (doctors in this case). Rather than have homosexual men and women stoned according to Islamic belief, these liberal-minded doctors concocted this "human rights" notion that men who feel like women should be helped to become women, and vice versa. I think their real motive was to avoid deaths and other punishments towards homosexuals by changing these men and women to their what they called their "natural gender".
I remember watching beautifully crafted Iranian films, so artistically made, with daring subjects and messages. Many of these films were made in rural areas, with local people as "actors", and which in essence were documentary-type films.
By pretending to film in this documentary style, following the lives of ordinary people as they "naturally" unfolded, these filmmakers were able to convince (fool) the government censors into letting them make their films. Quite a feat, in the harsh theocratic climate.
