
Be Like Others
Canada, Iran, United Kingdom, United States,
2008
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74 min.
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Dir. Tanaz Eshaghian
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, you can be put to death for being a homosexual. But according to a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomenei over 20 years ago, the Qu’ran says nothing about transsexuals, and so sex changes are permissible—even gently condoned. Without pressing the case, Iranian-American director Tanaz Eshaghian leaves open the delicate, chilling possibility that some young men may be getting their junk chopped off because their parents, doctors, and society are telling them it’s at once okay to become a woman and an abomination to remain a gay man. It’s a riveting study of the way gender and sexuality intersect in a 21st-century theocracy.