State Subsidized Gender Reassignment Surgery, In Iran

In Foreign Policy:

Last fall, Passport noted that more sex-change surgeries are performed in Iran than in any other country except Thailand. Ayatollah Khomeini approved them for “diagnosed transsexuals” 25 years ago, and today the Iranian government will pay up to half the cost for those in financial need. Former FP researcher David Francis wrote, “In a country that shuns homosexuality, this makes perverse sense, as after a sex-change operation, one technically isn’t attracted to one’s own sex and therefore isn’t gay.”

For more, see here.

[H/t: Jonathan Kramnick]