The Islamic Republic of Iran permits, and even partially subsidizes, sex reassignment surgery. Based on historical and ethnographic research, Afsaneh Najmabadi examines what transsexuality means in postrevolutionary Iran.

Since the mid-1980s, the Islamic Republic of Iran has permitted, and partially subsidized, sex reassignment surgery. In Professing Selves, Afsaneh Najmabadi explores the meaning of transsexuality in contemporary Iran. Combining historical and ethnographic research, she describes how, in the postrevolutionary era, the domains of law, psychology and psychiatry, Islamic jurisprudence, and biomedicine became invested in distinguishing between the acceptable "true" transsexual and other categories of identification, notably the "true" homosexual, an unacceptable category of existence in Iran. Najmabadi argues that this collaboration among medical authorities, specialized clerics, and state officials—which made transsexuality a legally tolerated, if not exactly celebrated, category of being—grew out of Iran's particular experience of Islamicized modernity. Paradoxically, state regulation has produced new spaces for non-normative living in Iran, since determining who is genuinely "trans" depends largely on the stories that people choose to tell, on the selves that they profess.

"In her theoretically sophisticated book, historian Najmabadi investigates the political and cultural evolution of Iranian attitudes toward 'sexual deviancy and sexual disorder,' beginning in the 1930s. . . .Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." - Choice

"A fascinating book that... challenges the Western media’s depiction of transsexuality and sex reassignment surgery as coercive while ignoring the vibrant reform movement and history of progressive activism in Iran." - Middle East Media and Book Reviews

"“Under guise of an ethnography of transsexuality in contemporary Iran, Afsaneh Najmabadi has written a nuanced ethnography of the transition of the Iranian state and public sphere from one type (jins) to another. Building on Joan Scott’s (1986) observation that gender is a useful category for historical analysis, Najmabadi goes beyond showing that sex and sexuality are also useful categories for historical analysis to suggest that somatic-constitutional transformation can be as well. … Najmabadi is an excellent guide through this world of nonconforming confirmers of the core gender categories of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” " - TSQ

"“Here we find that nuanced and adept reading of power, subjectivity, submission, and subversion—this time of lived, contemporary cultural practices—that we have grown to expect from a scholar of her caliber.”" - GLQ

"“ Afsaneh Najmabadi’s new book Professing Selves is a great start to understanding how gender and sexuality work within Iran. It makes the point that geography, history, culture, and on-going macro- and microsocial processes are crucial to understanding transsexuality and same-sex desire…. This is a work that speaks to the historical and cultural relativity of social meanings and practices—the importance of the local and specific.”" - Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences