MAY A MUSLIM WHO HAS UNDERGONE SEX-CHANGE SURGERY IDENTIFY AS THE OPPOSITE SEX?

Question:

A man at our mosque had sex-change surgery before his conversion to Islam and now identifies as a woman; He wears women’s attire and is allowed to pray in the women’s prayer space. Those around him affirm him in his delusion and claim that he is remorseful for his decision and has made tawbah (repented) to God for it. Many of us, however, consider this a baseless argument since it seems that a proper tawbah would entail identifying as one’s biological sex. Do you agree with this assessment?

Answer:

الحمد لله رب العالمين وصلى الله على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين

When a person, man or woman, undergoes sex-change surgery, this procedure does not alter the fundamental reality that they were born with either XX or XY chromosomes. Chromosomes are the strongest identifiers of a person’s sex. And no amount of social engineering and sophistry can transform fact to fiction nor fiction to fact.

Reality (al-wāqi‘) is the arena of the proper application of Islamic law (shariah). And when Muslims affirm an individual’s fiction or split with reality, enormous harm is done to society and the individual we seek to accommodate; It distorts human nature, language, perception, morality, and trust between people which ultimately leads to great upheaval, strife, and dissension.

Obscured gendered people and hermaphrodites are not foreign to Islam and Muslim society; Effeminate men, masculine women, and hermaphrodites have special rulings in Islamic law. And although the sex of some hermaphrodites is undeterminable using the primitive methods of classical Muslim jurists, none of them suggested that such people should be placed under a third category of sex beyond the natural binary of male and female. Rather, every person born is either a boy or a girl. And until we can discern which sex the person belongs to, he or she will not be allowed to fully participate in social life as normal members do.

A so-called “transgender” or “transexual” person, on the other hand, is unlike the hermaphrodite inasmuch that sexual obscurity is due to physical mutilation, not an accident of nature. Physical mutilation of oneself or another is Islamically forbidden. And our predecessors among the Prophet’s companions and others considered castration (al-ikhsā’) to be a prime example of what it means to “change God’s creation.” Furthermore, while it is often claimed that such procedures are necessary to prevent suicide, there is plenty of empirical data and statistics showing that suicide rates rise rather than fall among people after they transition.

Muslims are not only forbidden from affirming the sexual identity of such men and women. They are further to ensure that they play no prominent role in any religious posts, especially while continuing to identify in such ways. They should also not be allowed to pray in the ranks of women. Nor should women who have transitioned be allowed to pray in the ranks of men. Many jurists strongly discourage or forbid allowing strangers, reformed sodomites, eunuchs, and bastard children from leading congregational prayers due to fear of controversy and abuse which would be directed against them by community members. So, what would one expect to happen if a man dressed in women’s attire were given a prominent role at a masjid? Had the removal of one’s testicles and scrotum been sufficient to make a man a woman, eunuchs—once common in Muslim lands—would have qualified as women.

In conclusion, a Muslim who has undergone sex-change surgery is not allowed to identify as the opposite sex. And Muslims around him or her are not allowed to affirm them in their delusional state. Sincere repentance and remorse for self-mutilation of one’s genitals prior to Islam entails identification with one’s biological sex, not an insistence upon being acknowledged as the sex with which one identifies. This is a delicate issue which requires compassion as such people suffer with their own self reality. We should pray for their healing. But we cannot under any circumstance validate their fiction nor grant them a public role in our community while they continue to suffer from a type of confusion from which we pray that God spares us as well as our loved ones.

Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

Lamppost Education Initiative, Founding Director

Zaytuna College, Associate Professor of Islamic Law