Transgender Across Cultures

Even though human rights are supposed to be objective and controlled by laws to protect

and help people in the world, studies show that human right would be considered as subjective

and ruled by the religions and their beliefs not for the greater good (Stenner, 2011). This is why

people have to fight for their rights to get the things they deserve. One of these rights and

concepts that people are fighting for, is transgender identity. Transgender is a term that describes

people who prefer a different gender than their assigned one at birth for different reasons

(Stryker, 2017). In fact, they differential between sex and gender, where sex is the biological

aspect of a person that is determined by their chromosomal formation, while gender is a asocial

construct that reflects on how a person perceives themselves and might lead to them identifying

with a gender that seems right to them rather than their biological sex (Evans, 2019). In fact, they

would represent their preferred gender through their outfits, cosmetics, or even by modifying

some of their features (Jamel, 2017).

Transgender practices have been there since ancient times, in fact when an interview was

conducted with miss Joanna abillama, who has an MA in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies from

Lebanese American University, she said that in the past there would be people that could be

transgendered even if they don’t use that word. they would be assigned at birth as a female and

then spend their whole life dressing up as men and everyone used to address them as “he”.

However, the term “transgender” was created in the beginning of the 1900s, however it started to

get more known in 1950s, and they have been fighting for their rights all throughout the years

(Matthews, 2017). Furthermore, transgender practices are found all around the world yet

different cultures and societies react to them differently depending on their beliefs and norms. It
is not that one is the bad, and one is perfect, rather, one is a bit safer than the other in this

specific topic. It will be a matter of which cultures accepted and respected transgender on a

political, social, and individual levels.

In western countries, transgender is something that is becoming more accepted and

presented. Even though, it is not the perfect situation, and a lot of places and people are

conservatives and are not acceptable of the whole LGBTQ+ community, but the general laws in

these countries are getting more and more accepting of the community to be an active, equal part

of the society. In fact, several countries such as France, Denmark, and more that 21 states of the

USA, have laws to protect transgendered people against any type of discrimination in health

care, education, jobs, and housing (TGEU,2022; Blazina & Baronavski, 2022). Whereas, in

many states still transpeople are discriminated against in the new laws implemented, like

banning, gender-affirming health care for youth under 18, their access to public toilets, and even

from playing sports (Nakajima & Jin, 2022; Thoresonv, 2022). This shows that culture really

plays a role in creating the common norms and beliefs a society abides by. Even if it seems to be

one culture and mindset that guides the west all together, but each person in each state and

country has their own ideas and views on what is right or wrong and they share that will a

number of people and that creates a cultural perspective which leads to changes in laws and

countries.

On a different view, the Arab world holds a distinct perspective on transgender individuals,

mainly due to their conservative nature and strong adherence to traditional beliefs and practices.

This makes them resistant to change and less accepting of those who deviate from traditional

gender roles. There are numerous factors that shape the Arab world’s perspective on transgender
individuals. Firstly, the law is one of the main issues that affects the culture’s perspective on

transgender. In most countries in the Arab world, they state indirectly that transgenderism and

homosexuality are unacceptable in the law (Ghoshal, 2021). In Kuwait, UAE, and even Oman an

action of imitating the opposite gender is considered illegal and are criminalized. In fact, any

man dressed up as a woman and attended an only women event will be punished, however even

in mixed places transwoman are being arrested and punished (Ghoshal, 2021). However, in

Lebanon the law they use to arrest transgender people is the same one that they use for people

who are homosexual, which does not explicitly criminalize them. The law states that any sexual

act against the order of nature is illegal and they can be prisoned for up to one year (Lebanon:

End Systemic Violence Against Transgender Women, 2020).

The second factor that guides the Arab world on the topic of transgender is religion. In the

Arab world culture and religion play a huge role in saying what is generally accepted by society

and what isn’t. Moreover, in Lebanon, cases of police officers abusing and harassing

transwomen are widely spread, and they explain that by saying that it is what they grew up on

(Lebanon: End Systemic Violence Against Transgender Women, 2020). Furthermore, the Arab

society as a whole is a place where traditions are hard to contravene because they are deeply

rooted in the culture, so even if you find people who are accepting and openminded, that would

be a small amount with respect to the huge number of conservative and traditional people there

is. Moreover, middle eastern countries are deeply connected to the ideologies of religion, where

transgender is a complex matter that is still being argued and discussed till now (Whitaker,

2018). Even though some religious references consider transgenderism allowed and accepted,

first if there was biological evidence on that matter and secondly, if they do the surgery needed,
others consider it as a sin and a devilish act which has the most effect on society’s perception of

the concept and attitudes towards it (Whitaker, 2018).

Even though it is extremely hard on trans-national-men or women to be themselves in an

Arab, what if the person was a Syrian immigrant suffering from racial discrimination as well. In

the case of Syrian refugees, the “intersecting statuses” that they can be described with, where

they are transgendered, Syrian, refugees, who witnessed wars, and are being assaulted constantly

(Clark et al, 2021). The study shows that two-third of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are developing

major depression for to being sexually harassed due to their gender identity. In addition, some of

them develop anxiety and PTSD due to the fact that they have been through multiple traumas in

their life as mentioned before (Clark et al, 2021). Moreover, this shows that the more people

abide less to cultural rules and beliefs the more they will be discriminated against and casted out

of the society.

On a political aspect, the issues of culture can take a much bigger role, as a way to show

support to one country over the other. This is what the Israeli government is doing. When miss

Joanna abillama was asked about that in the interview she said that “Israeli’s political agenda or

at least part of it is to be seen as superior to Arabs.” She also added that they use pink washing

which is strategy of showing that they support LGBTQ+ community to show that they are liberal

and more democratic than Arab countries. In fact, miss abillama said that they use this to show

that they are openminded and better than any Arab country especially Palestine. They even trick

LGBTQ+ Palestinian individuals into being part of an accepting culture to then use them to

gather information on their communities (Naber & Zaatari, 2014). However, studies show that

transphobia is present in Israeli societies through discrimination and bullying in schools

(Danielewicz and Fiorini, 2017). Additionally, there are extreme discrimination and

mistreatment towards people who are transgender in the workplace and even the military. Thus,

all that is just an act to attract LGBTQ+ Palestinians and to be accepted more by people.

As a conclusion, the differences and similarities between western countries and those of

the middle east are generally obvious where the west is more supportive of transgender and the

middle east is more transphobic. However, if people go deeper into each of the countries, they

see that it is less about the country as a whole and more about each subculture inside it. This is

why, transgendered people are yet not fully accepted in one country, but they are accepted by a

couple groups of people in a country and that is the same throughout the world. Yet the

difference might be the rate of acceptance, so the subculture that accepts transgender in the

middle east would be, according to what was discussed before, smaller than that in the western

countries. In fact, when concluding the interview with miss abillama, asking about the reason of

the differences between those countries, she said that “in societies that are more open and

accepting, more people come out to themselves more than just publicly. Whereas in other

societies, some people might not realize they are transgendered because they didn’t know

growing up that it was an option. Finally, gender should not have any relation to the person

having their rights or not, of education, health care, and employment, no matter what the person

identifies as.
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