 Hi everybody, it's really, thank you very much for joining us today. I'd like to thank first of all London Middle East Institute Centre of Iranian Studies and Aki El-Borisi specifically from Zohaz for helping us put on this event. Now, this is the first in what I hope will be a series of events where we actually look at LGBTQ Iranian lives and experiences. And I think it's quite apt that it's occurring during the History Month in the UK as important aspects of history, provenance, context, content and time are really pertinent here. Today we're learning about Iran, whereas a nation with a gender neutral language discussions around the use of the term they change. Whilst ideas need to be addressed in linguistically, no change is required. Likewise, ideas of third and fourth genders, whilst new to Western cultures have ancient roots in some other parts of the world. And then meanwhile, when we consider the fact that Western LGBTQ studies are only a few decades old and importantly highly dynamic, and that includes the language and the terminology. I'm actually saying this is a pretext and an apology on behalf of all of us taking part today in case anyone uses a term that another is in disagreement with. So please let us kindly alert each other, but let us also be aware of the cultural nuances in language and socio religious structures that mean LGBTQ experiences are as varied as the nations that they occur in. And of course there is the normal culture which is highly dynamic and is still being formula. Now today we are really lucky that we've got the brilliant scholars from different points of their career joining us and I'm not going to say too much about what they're going to speak about because you're going to find that shortly. But what we've done is we are going to close the chat during the presentations of idea friends today, and all your questions, please address in the Q&A section and kindly put the name of the person you'd like to have the question addressed to. Unfortunately, as you're aware, especially with the numbers that we have, we may not be able to address all the questions, however, Aki is kindly putting up all the email contacts of our speakers today. At the end of each of that talks, you will get a list of their literature review, literature references, which you may find interesting. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce our first speaker, Zeina Peram Barzode is undertaking a PhD in Sociology on untellability of Persian bisexual narratives at the University of Huddersfield in the UK. They are co-founder and board member of Spectrum, a feminist queer organization based in France, and a teaching assistant in online Persian masters program around academia. So Zeina, if you'd like to take over please. Thanks for joining us today. And I want to especially thank my research participant and activists who helped me to do this research and are present here today with us. I'm going to talk about mononormativity in the Persian speaking LGBT communities. And by mononormativity, I mean the normative understanding of sexual orientation in the binary of heterosexual versus gay, which erase other sexual orientation such as bisexuality, pansexuality, and I'm doing this research as a bi activist because I used to, and I still do that I encourage people to talk about their bisexuality, but I realize that it's hard to talk about bisexuality in the Persian context and also to understand it. So I try to understand why this happened. So, my main claim is that any as a story about sexual orientation in post-revolutionary Iran is often shaped around the idea of discovering the real gay and also realize if that person deserve to be protected. That happened because of the fact that a lot of people had to seek asylum based on their sexual orientation. And because of that, we can see that stories are told to and by different people in the field, including asylum seekers, activists who support them, their interpreters, case officers, and even when reporters and researchers talk about sexual orientation, they often have to do they research or they reports about asylum seekers because they are the most accessible group for any research about sexual orientation among Iranians. And on cyber space is also a lot of discussions on social media are often around the fact of supporting asylum seekers. And I decided to focus on bisexual asylum seekers as an as a bisexual immigrant who has had the privilege of not being forced to seek asylum. So this research is trying to fill the gap between different area of studies, sexual orientation and gender identity studies about Iran, which has often neglected bisexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity based asylum which also does not consider bisexuality by a studies which is often only about people who live in their own country intimate citizenship which also does not consider immigrants and asylum seekers. And even when we talk about a stateless studies it's often about not about sexuality. And by intimate citizenship I mean the discussion about a right to intimate part of our life. I will discuss that later. So, the sexual stories in the asylum process are being told and retold several times, but the main occasion that these stories are being told are when asylum seekers tell it to the case officers with the support of their allies who are other asylum seekers and also activists. So I use a framework designed by Plummer which discusses any occasion of telling a story based on who is telling the story with whose advice and who is the reader, who is the audience. And based on Plummer framework I use a specific framework to analyze the context that stories are being told and understood. In this interactive narrative analysis approach I analyze context in three different levels in intersubjective level I focus on language intention conscious and unconscious choices that people make in telling their stories. The social field which focus on historical events social groups, structures and institutions in relation to identities, social networks, emotions, motivations, and in metanarrative level I focus on the local and universal meaning systems and concepts that are behind any storytelling. And to collect my data I have used two different techniques I have interviewed asylum seekers and activists. But I only, I did not only interviewed bisexuals but I also interviewed monosexuals by monosexuals I mean gay lesbian and heterosexual trans asylum seekers and I made this decision not only because it is hard to find by sexual asylum seekers but also because as I said, stories are shaped in interaction between people so it is important to consider all of those people who are involved in the process as stakeholders. And I will also refer to online and offline participant observation of Persian public so many debates that I have been involved in it, both as a researcher and activist for several years. So in analyzing the asylum stories I consider different stages of asylum. The past life of asylum seekers in Iran the asylum process itself, they're living the condition in Turkey as a transitory country and also their possible future after resettlement in a third country which is often either US, Canada, Australia, and more recently some European countries, especially Spain. So by analyzing those interviews, I concluded that asylum seekers learn about Saudi from their family members, friends, health providers and media and cyber spaces. So online and offline LGBT communities and the information that they have find have been in different languages in Persian, Turkish and English. And even when they were not familiar enough with English they have tried to use different strategy to be able to access that information even sometimes using Google translator. And they also tend to use English terminologies more than Persian ones, and they also trust English sources more than the Persian ones. They have also faced and witnessed online and offline biphobia, regardless of their own sexual orientation. So when I talk about biphobia in the community, I mean different negative attitude that people have in the community. The first one is that bisexuals are hypersexual, romping a gay man activist says this is a very common idea that bisexual individuals can have orgasm wherever they want. Emotional dimensions are not considered at all. Bisexuals are also considered as cheaters, ahura, a bi man says, I'm always adopted and humiliated by my partner. My partner think that I'm in a relationship with a girl all the time. And this is very hard. And my partner does not like me to have a female friend. Another form of biphobia is that bisexuals, bisexuality is not seen as a sexual orientation. Sharia, a trans woman who used to identify as gay for a while, remembers. It seemed that people were divided to two groups. Some seem to be people outside that community who were hetero and the rest of us who used to say that we are gay. Bisexual was not a word. So we did not use to talk about it. There is also this assumption that everyone is bisexual, but can choose to become straight. Some on a heterosexual trans man justify that idea this way. I say maybe it's because of banning sexual relationship with the opposite sex. It is banned here in Turkey as well. This is a very common stereotype in the cyber spaces as well that I will discuss it later. Another biphobic attitude is that bisexuality is just a phase. Robbing a bi man has been told several times, you would like to have a relationship once or maximum twice. You will leave and you will seek the other one, the other sex. You don't get attached. But Robbing emphasized that he can be really deeply attached to his partners. And also bisexuals are not accepted as a part of LGBT community. Sure now a heterosexual trans woman remembers bisexuals were closer to us but not one of us. This feeling was there, but we were very comfortable with them. They were very present in our community had an active presence and really like to be integrated into the society really like to be accepted. But what is the impact of that by phobia and bisexual people. It's by invisibility, which happens in different ways. First of all, sometimes bisexuals cannot discover their sexual orientation. If I remember a bi plus queer person who used to identify as heterosexual trans man says, if I knew that sexual orientation is a spectrum, maybe I would search more. Another impact of that is bisexuals cannot find a role model for themselves. Mona a bi cis woman says, no one used to officialize it. I mean, I don't remember that anyone has emphasized that for example they are bisexual, or you can be bisexual. And yeah by cis person I mean a person who identify with the same gender as they have been assigned at best. And at the end bisexuals have to hide themselves. Robin a bi cis man who used to introduce himself as gay says, I used to feel that this way they will accept me more compared with a bisexual, because they used to keep a distance from me. But there is another form of by phobia which is resulted directly from asylum process. Some asylum seekers claim that bisexuality has been misused by asylum seekers. Ali a queer person says, if we were in an open society in a European country where there was no ban for any sexual orientation, it wouldn't be a problem for me, but in this asylum context, bisexuality has been misused. Someone a trans heterosexual man also says, authorities have heard a lot of lies asylum seekers presented themselves in the name of bisexual bisexual bisexual to the extent that they ruin the situations for others. For example, many bisexual cases take longer many are not believed many get picked up. My result confirmed the previous studies which has been done based on asylum cases that I have discussed it in my book chapter that you can find online. That bisexual asylum seekers tend to be rejected more than gay and lesbian asylum seekers because bisexuals are erased that from country of origin information documents which are very important document when asylum cases are assessed and also because bisexual asylum seekers or their interpreters are not familiar with the terms and definitions used to describe bisexuality. And also because asylum authorities expect asylum seekers to choose between heterosexual or gay. And as a result, bisexual asylum seekers are invisible in the asylum process the percentage of bisexual asylum seekers among the LGBT asylum seekers is very low sometimes almost zero. Because asylum activists and other asylum seekers advise them to seek asylum as gay or lesbian. As I said I have analyzed cyber spaces as well the cyber spaces are important to understand the context because they are the platforms that people find resources about sexual orientation and gender identity. They find other LGBTQ individuals they can come out or tell their anonymous stories and they can also organize for collective actions for example by using hashtags and cyber storms. We can recognize two different debates in social media and also generally in LGBTQ communities. Another debate is between the concept of Ham Jens was or same sex player which is a very offensive word and it's often used by people who are LGBT phobic and Ham Jens Gara which is considered to be a more acceptable and respectable one. And it can be translated as a homosexual. But there is a newer debate. Again by using Ham Jens was or same sex player but this time against bisexuals or do Jens Gara in Persian. And this is often used by gay people who claim that they are not the Ham Jens was the same sex player the perverted one. Bisexuals are that pervert group and they try to defend themselves in this way. But where these concepts are coming from. The S4 activists suggested to use Ham Jens Gara in a state of Ham Jens pause in 1994 in Huma magazine which is considered to be the first Persian game magazine. And why in many languages activists suggested to use gay as an identity in a state of homosexual as a pathologized concept since 1960s defining Ham Jens was in contrast to Ham Jens Gara can be compared with defining homosexual in contracts to homosexual by psychologists in the global north in the middle of 20th century when they were analyzing gender segregated contexts such as prison and military services. But why all of these discussions are important. I want to come back to the concept of intimate citizenship that I mentioned at the beginning. Bisexual citizenship is about our right to choose what we want to do with our bodies our feelings our identities our relationships gender eroticism and representations. But bisexual citizens are excluded from discussions and intimate right because of heteronormativity but also because of mononormativity. It is also important to consider that LGBTQ asylum seekers right including their intimate rights are neglected in any discussion about citizenship because they are stateless. So in a broader context in the international level we can talk about international polarization. On the one hand, there are civil society activists, a state and media who talks about sexual right as human right and then on the other hand there are again civil society activists, a state and media who talks about traditional values. And both of these groups are under impact of globalization and both of these approach and discourses are universal approaches. I want to conclude that by phobia and by erasure in the Persian speaking community is under influence of by phobia in the English pop culture and media and social media because they are the resources that shape our understanding of sexual orientation. And also under impact of academic studies and human rights reports in the global north because they shape their country of origin information documents that asylum cases are assessed based on that. And the asylum process itself is very important because it forced people to perform a specific form of gayness and refuginess to be able to get asylum. In such a context, Persian by stories are not tellable and if told are not heard understood and recognized. Thanks for listening. Thank you very, very much for that and thank you for keeping so in time. Ladies and gentlemen, as I said before, please all your questions addressed to the person you'd like to ask it from in the Q&A. Next, we're going to move on to Bahar Arzadi. Now I might add here that it's because of many hours spent having listened to gender issues from Bahar that part of the reason that we've got this whole LGBTQ Iran series going on. Dr. Arzadi received her doctorate in philosophy from University of Paris Descartes-sur-Ban. She's currently part time researcher at the Faculty of Medicine Bishat and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Paris once upon. Her postdoctoral research is on female genital mutilation in France, but a large body of her work and her PhD was on transsexual studies in Iran. Thank you Bahar Arzadi and I'll hand over to you. Okay, good evening everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here today to present you briefly a short presentation of my research that I've done for my PhD two years ago on transgender identities in contemporary Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This beautiful picture was shot by my dear friend Tahmina Monzavi in which you can see Tina, a trans woman who has passed away unfortunately one year ago in February and in memory of our dear Tina I wanted to put her beautiful picture here. So let me start with notions and terms. Abbreviation trans or transgender is an umbrella term covering people whose gender identity is different from the gender assigned to them at birth. Trans people may desire or not to undergo sexual reassignment surgery and medical assistance to transition. Trans people like anyone else could be non binary gender fluid or binary and also after transition or before transition. They can also be non monosexual or monosexual. Most of the people that I met for my interviews identified themselves as trans transsexual or TS, but as you can see there's some terms that have been translated in Farsi as sex change surgery, gender confirmation, as you can see, there is a changing from sex change surgery to gender affirmation. But as I said, most of the trans people that I met identified themselves simply as trans TS or transsexual DSM or ICD 11 are both two important friends that not only in Iran, but in all countries that a trans person is should pass by a protocol of medical legal sexual reassignment surgery. So all of these countries are based our reference to a diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder in Iran. We are still based to version five of this manual in which seeking the seeking of medical and surgical help is a symptom of gender dysphoria. However, we can see a very optimistic changing, for example, for WHO that approved recently that in its global manual of diagnostic, they have put gender incongurgence from the mental disorder to a chapter related to conditions related to sexual health. But as I mentioned, in Iran, we are still in a DSM five that seeking of medical and surgical help is a symptom of gender dysphoria or malology and CIT or as gender identity disorder. So my questions, arguments and methods as my time is really brief here. I don't talk about my tilt reticle approach that I use in my PhD, but I was really influenced by Foukeldian approach about power, knowledge and subject and the discourse analysis and discourse criticism. So my method was completely qualitative analysis. I did in the in depth interview with trans people group interview also with with all institutional person that they are engaged in this protocol of sexual reassignment surgery. I also did some online interview and observation that I will explain later. As Asana Najbombadi as a historian show us in her great works, the history of gender transition in Iran begins in in in 1940s. And in 1960s, we can see that a lot of terms like sex and gender determination notions of gender disorder or hormonal or genetical are have been translated largely from American Psychiatric Literature to Iranian language. The other part is the history of Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa in 1967, when he was exiled in Najaf and at this time in Tahrir al-Wassiyah in a series of his books, he legalized the sexual reassignment surgery for intersex people. In 1973, the first reported have been reported, they have the first sex change for non intersex people have been reported in the media. And then when Khomeini became not a leader of Islamic Republic as and he gained the not only as a religious authority was a political authority, his fatwa gained support, finance and force of love. So, when we talk about Khomeini and his fatwa surely we talk about Maryam Khatuna Mulkara who is a spiritual mother for trans people in Iran who met Khomeini in person and it was the first person that they that got the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini. Mulkara sent the letters to Khomeini and every time Khomeini thought that she's an intersex and referred her to his fatwa. But when he saw her in Iran in 1986, it was the time that Khomeini understood what is the difference between an intersex and a trans woman like Maryam Khatuna Mulkara. And as you can see in the translation of the fatwa Khomeini said that sex reassignment surgery is not prohibited in Sharia law if reliable medical doctor recommend it. In this fatwa we can be there isn't any obligation for trans people to undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. However, what is a conditional and what is very important is the medical diagnostic of being trans. So, the Islamic Sharia Taut institutionalized by the total strategic state of Iran has an open perception and we can all the time criticizing this openness. What are the principles that in this Shia Taut have been taken to legalize this gender transition or this gender identification. If you are really interested I recommend you to read the works of Alipur or the work of Karimina and but I just put some some of these principle like for example necessity over prohibition is a guiding principle in Islamic medical ethics. The point is that when you are in a situation of hardship. This hardship is a necessity so it's so a trans person because he or she suffer from the situation is in a situation of necessity and and this person can over its prohibition principle of permissibility is that everything or act that isn't clearly forbidden. I think is it is the one of the most important principle that I don't know how many took and because we don't find anything as haram in Sharia law so it's hallowed the principle of dominant, which is very nice principle I find it really nice but all the time is limited in its limitation is that everybody had a right to or a right to control over his or her body and property and the transformation of adjectives and characters of creators do not change the essence of the creation. So as I told you in Iran, passing by a sex reassignment bureaucracy or medical medical legal sex change protocol is obligatory. It's not only by a psychiatric assessment but for other other trans people told me that they start they they processes by a judge by an authorization of a judge in a familiar court so trans people are really between these two big institutions of psychiatric assessment medical assessment and the other points is the law and what is regarding law in this country. So these processes is not as simple as you can see sometimes they are the years and yet in the years in this labyrinth. They are institutional and sometimes they are referred back and what is important that in this protocol mandatory sterilization is so very important and not only mandatory sterilization mandatory reconstructing sex reconstruction after the sterilization. So a trans person as I told you my thesis was about the subjectivity is the process of identification a trans person not only in Iran in other, you know, I think in every countries in every society is in a bigger layer of gender normativity in some countries like Iran is highly binary and everybody knows it. And in some other countries is is less. It could be less binary or however the voice of activism is more more here. But in this gender normativity as is produced and reproduced by religion, citizenship, love, family, school, love, job, everything. So this process of identification starts in this space and then is institutionalization in as the work of Zara say it shows us and it's very interesting that trans trans subject in Iran is mostly a subject of medicine and that's why I told you that we are completely stuck in a paradigm of pathologization. Even though the sexual reassignment surgery have been legalized, but trans person they didn't got a recognition in law, we can find other the other discourses in this institutionalization, like who is a real trans who is a fake trans who is the who will become a proper woman and proper man. And we have also the voice of transgender activism outside and inside Iran. And all of these so influence to these identifications and surely it is interactive trans person as a subject also influenced to these different layers. I put some names they are not I didn't wanted to label trans people, but what I labeled is their reactions is their process of identification they are sometimes disciplined. They're happy and good in this binary and in this protocol, proposed to them in Iran, they could be non binary they could be gender nomad and they become the outsiders of this institutionalization of the request in Iran. They can be regretters, but not only regretters because they didn't, they wasn't real trans, but because of the, for example, the quality of their surgeries because they were forced to do surgery in limited time of two years to gain their identity. We have strategies, this means that they are someone they really seek this identification but they are the outsider of these institutions so to shed light to these different experience and strategies I I've chosen some quotes from my research, and I will read for you. I went to the hospital three times they tried to dissuade me from having an operation and asked me to come with my husband, I was in a very difficult situation at the time of the divorce. My husband always knew that I was not a woman like the others so I didn't agree to their terms, but they told me that if I didn't bring it up my case wouldn't move forward. I tried to kill myself because I couldn't take it anymore, but my kids took me to the hospital. I gave up my trappy at Roosevelt hospital as you can see this trans man at age of 13 of years with two children cannot pass this process as simple as I as I showed you, and he should bring his husband or his parents in his processes. So this is one of the specificities of Iranian history of transgenders. So the next coat is I want to remove my testicles by surgery and get a lawyer to change my documents. I can also do breast prosthesis, prosthesis surgery to feminize my body. The important thing is to stop being a man and look more like a woman, but I know that is not possible because I left my parents, and they will refuse my request I had a hard time I was injured by my brother my leg have been broken. I lost our studio again we didn't have any home. Now it's better I do business like you know the sex business we earn our living and we keep the city alive chahro about garden so for this young trans women who have left the home. They don't have any parents to be there for her request. So she's an outsider. And the other question is this situation that is really vulnerable for her. She do sex working for for gaining her living for for for living. But in this situation she she's completely outside of any recognition in the in Iran and she's completely in a situation of precarity and what is the becoming of this person that identify her herself as trans and she lives in this protocol. So I suggest you to come back to Iran and work for us and be careful not to become the instrument of the West I'm telling you the truth Iran is the paradise of for trans. There are no organization or charities to really help us despite all these tears can live in Iran it's not oil that the westerners can take away from us. So if you can write they can influence and raise awareness in Iran. Be careful what you do and for whom you do this research because your analysis can be used to attack the to attack and criticize you on once again this was one of the very interesting codes and one of the very interesting person that I've met because I've never hear the voice of these kinds of trans people in Iran. And I think it was really unique voice. So I experience it is different from that experience by another man likewise feminity as you experience it is different from the experience by another woman I create my masculinity my way. Copy and copy and paste of someone else it's mine so it's someone that has to quote trans man and actor and director of theater that I will show you his voice and an activist in Iran. I'm never going to talk about this with anyone I have no trans friends I only stay in touch with natural woman women like you. So this kind of auto censorship is really interesting in trans people that I've met not only in Iran but also outside of Iran as asylum seekers this is form of auto censorship and completely deleting all their past or his past is really one of the interesting points that I've met. So the last quotes it's I want to talk now about the form of resistance and I try to be I think that criticizing in a violent and angry way doesn't work in Iran. And this way of criticizing is even a little selfish because you have a criticize you have to criticize someone who is on an equal footing with you, not someone who doesn't know the trans topic. I don't mean to say that I'm always passive and gentle to defend myself I also scream when necessarily people start to tolerate a trans in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and not in an argument. Some resist this with anger and hatred, but it's not resistance so for these trans women in Iran. If you want, if you want to do some resistance, it isn't the same at the same way that we can see in other societies in Western societies with their demanding a bit asking recognition in law. It's more tolerate because you cannot be aggressive with someone with a society that isn't enough they don't know enough what is trans and what is trans issues. So cyber activism is one of the most important place for trans people to identify themselves. Not not these cyber activism is not only political, but by telling their stories their everyday life is a form of resistance against this invisibilization of trans people as an identity and only one and one single identity so here is someone as to that I thank him a lot because I learned a lot from him someone is an actor he was he did his transition into 2007. And he was the person of the first bodyguard as a woman in the Iranian cinema. But what he do as activists in Iran is that he proposed some kind of theater therapy this theater therapy was first start for himself to do a theater therapy for himself, and, but not only for for he he don't just he. Sorry, his histories is her individual histories but for other people's that join him in his workshop. What he do as a methodology and method in his works is that he invite for example trans people or their parents to go on the stage and talk directly to public and talk about their everyday lives. Sometimes he use some real trans person as a personage and this person in his theater that there isn't any fourth wall, they go to the public and ask them to read to put for example red nail polish on her, or put some red nail polish on her, and this is the strategies to facing people with this shame to accepting some identity some identities that they are not for them normal. He put the scarves for example to men to audience before starting off his peers, and he challenged this person to how it, how it could be feel when you don't belong to a gender representation and you should put it in your body, or he asked, for example, the audience to put to put on his best bandage that most of trans men do. And this is maybe is a final slide and is that when one hands holds him back and burst his veil, the other has comes to help him. Thank you so much for your attention. Thank you very much power john for your brilliant presentation. Some more than one speaker said that the complete references that we put don't seem to come up please. At the end. I'm going to put everyone's emails. As I said before into the chat so you're welcome to directly get in touch with our speakers. Our final speaker for today is shake over behind me. She holds an MA degree in comparative literature from the University of Amsterdam, and is currently part of the Amsterdam School for cultural analysis, where in 2020 she started conducting her PhD research into screened unscreened narratives, non normative gender and sexuality in contemporary Iran. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here today and definitely enjoyed all the presentations. I'm just going to share my screen. My research is titled on screened narratives non normative gender and sexuality in contemporary Iran as Roya John said, I want to say that I'm at the very beginning of my research and as much as I would have wanted to share more outcomes and results. Unfortunately, I have to stick to my approach more and hopefully today I can use the example of two films to show how perhaps films can be an opening for us to, you know, look at the overlaps between identity, gender, ethnicity and and sexuality. And in my research I look at, you know, a number of contemporary films and performances, also the works of someone our student Bahar mentioned, and I look for representations of queerness and non normativity and I use this term as an umbrella term referring to what is established outside of the heterosexual heteronormative codes within the society. And comparing and contrasting these films together with the political religious discourse as that was brought up a little bit, and I try to see then what is the space for queerness in contemporary Iran, given the dialogue that somehow is beginning to start with a cinematic artistic discourse and this political religious discourse. So when we talk about queer representations in Iranian cinema, of course we have to remember the censorship that all films have to go through. So we end up with films that feature a trans protagonist because of course as explained this identity is more recognized compared to other forms of identification. And you have these films that on a certain level they are aligned with the dominant political religious discourses that mandate, you know, medically transitioning to the other binary sex. And at the same time, some of them you see that they sort of criticize, they find a way to criticize the frameworks around this legalization. And these are just some of the examples that you might have comic press. We also have films that are a little bit more rare, I would say, and they bring up the topic of queer desire. So you have, for example, in invasion and a little bit more directly but in the the risk of acid drain you have a less indirect way of talking about queer desires, queer feelings. And of course, probably it starts with Daughters of the Sun by Mayam Shah Yadi in the year 2000. And of course there are other films that I have not included because it's a short time, but mostly there are series TV series and films that sometimes, you know, contribute to the stigmatization. When it comes to queer and trans individuals rather than criticize. So I haven't included those, but if we want to talk about it in the Q&A it would be great. So the films that I do want to talk about today are offside and cold sweat, specifically because they revolve around the issue of football and the stadiums. And I would suggest to kind of maybe remind you if you have watched them or tell you if you haven't watched them cold sweat tells the story of one particular female protagonist, the captain of the Iranian football team, the female football team, it's a fiction who wants to leave the country and go and attend an international match, but she can't because her husband has basically disallowed her from leaving the country and this of course rings a ball to so many of us. Many Iranian athletes have been in her shoes. So an example is Neelofar Erdalan. And on the other hand we have offside that tells the story of not the football players but the football fans who of course because of the ban imposed on female sports spectatorship cannot go to the stadium and have to do that as disguised as men. Like many women do and I'm sure the stories are familiar and so on the surface again these two films you know one of them criticizes the passport law. And the other one criticizes the ban and I'd like to show how perhaps they can do a little bit more than these criticisms. And the question that I chose them because they revolve around football and stadiums. And of course that's important because stadiums and football their political spaces political sports that's where the national identity begins to exist and be reflected and created. So if you look at the case of Iran, if you can see the photo I don't know how clear it is. You can see names of the 12 imams you can see religious symbolism and this is the Azadi stadium and that's how many giving an hour long speech to the Jewish force. And so this already this image gives an idea of why stadiums are important but also they're important because executions happen in in stadiums in smaller cities executions happen, and at the same time, together with the gender segregation that I talked about the stadium kind of represents and reflects this paternalistic patriarchal male dominated and violent violent space. It's interesting also to know that it also reflects some other issues such as the marginalization of different ethnicities. For example, in the year 2018 there was a match between person police from, from Tehran and character says he from Tabriz and what happened was that the number of seats allocated to the fans of character says he were fewer than those allocated to the person police. And so this kind of already reflects the marginalization of this ethnic group but also that it started a conflict right the the fans of tractor says he started to cost the boundary and and to occupy the same number of seats and sort of be entitled to the same safety and the same space. So basically, the whole point is that the stadiums are key to establishing this Persian shee identity. I want to just drew on the work of Ali Ansari here who writes in his book titled the politics of nationalism in modern Iran. He writes that this form of nationalism the Persian shee nationalism is not a new nationalism after the revolution it is merely a reinterpretation of the nationalism that already existed before the revolution. Now it's with a focus on the, the, the key role of the clergy in building in building this national sentiment. And so there is there are some overlaps then right between the Persian shee nationalism and the nationalism that that has been there since the modernization process during the the part of the era. And those overlaps, again, can be mentioned the Persian centrism right what is also key in both forms of nationalism and has been extending before the revolution and after the revolution is is the meaning and the symbolism of the female body, how it has been politicized back then by practices of devailing and after the revolution by the the mandatory hitch up. So I just want you to have all these in in your mind before we go to the the films. So basically, the questions that I'd like to address the questions I think this films can can help us think about because I think we don't think about these questions as much when we talk about LGBT issues is that what are the overlaps between these experiences the experiences of non normative individuals and and people from non Persian communities. And so to go to the first film. So I told you that in cold said we have a fruits are the sunny who wants to leave the country he she has already this national sentiment of going and playing for her country but she can't because of the passport law. So stop article three of article 18 and an article 19 basically mandates for a married woman to have a written permission from their husband from her husband to apply and get an Iranian passport but also article 19 gives a permission to the husband to withdraw. That's initial permission at any time that he wants so basically married woman cannot rely on on her passport because at any given moment it can be taken away from her and this is exactly what happens in the case of other fruits. So I want to just point out one one thing that is very interesting about cold sweat that from the start the film gives us two opposite teams almost like football itself, you have two characters who identify or embody the Persian she nationalism which we talked about with the entanglement of she is and religiosity and the Persian centrism and you have two other characters. Afriz herself and and a team member messy who stand in in opposition to this Persian she nationalism. So those who embody this nationalism the nationalism of the state are one of the characters you actually see in figure one, the one who is wearing a black jaw door, who is the supervisor of the team called me run it and the other one you see here, this is a freezes husband, yes, so these two sort of get closer together when the film gets a little bit further and the reason why is that they discover that a cruise hasn't been living with the other with her husband for over a year and instead she's been living with messy her team member teammate and possibly partner. So this realization basically takes away the opportunity from from a cruise to ask the federation to support her because this is possible that the football federation sense her as a national athlete rather than the husband take her captive as as a married woman, but it doesn't happen, because the two are aligned with this Persian she nationalism and as much as she tries and and she gives into all the requirements. It's, it doesn't happen. And by all the requirements. I want to draw your attention to the figure two here. She is asked to basically go back to her husband and give into his request and have sex in order to persuade him to give this permission. And as you see here, she is in the kitchen a domesticated environment, and he is gazing upon her within that, you know, social role and gender norm. And this is basically before he again denies that's right from her. So I want you to remember this kind of dynamic as we go to offside and offside is interesting because it was shot during the match. It was taken place at the Azadis stadium in 2006 World Cup qualifying match. So pretty important. And at the same time there were open stadium campaign advocates outside of the stadium so it's a very socially relevant film. And what happens here that again you have authority figures against a protagonist. But what's interesting is that this authority figure is a little bit different from that authority figure that we had there, because with a fruits and marané here, both of them are Persian speaking women and then here you have a guard a soldier who is from Azerbaijan was from Tabriz with a group of female protagonists on identified unlabeled. You know, it's they can be queer women they can be by and so on. So the dynamic here is interesting because now this authority figure is male, but he's not Persian speaking and this changes the power relationship between the two characters they start off as being sort of opposite of each other and one is captive the other one is is policing them, and then they talk and realize that they share some experiences, and the shared experience is exactly because of the patriarchy and the Persian centrism within this national, national space. If the the protagonist played by Shai Steirani, she decides to, you know, challenge the gender norms and gender roles as she has done by, you know, ignoring the ban and entering the stadium. Then she is seen as as a traitor like a fool she is seen as someone who is no longer part of this national space, and if the soldier from Azerbaijan wants to not submit to this Persian centrism he is seen as a separation is he is seen again as someone who does not belong to this national space. So I want to just draw your attention to this shot here, which happens sort of after this connection is made between these two characters and you'll see the soldier from Azerbaijan looking at these women with an X again because unidentified. And as they are rejoicing after Iran has scored a goal, even though he doesn't feel that sense of identification with Iran and we realize in the film that he identifies more with the city he comes from rather than Iran. He sort of connects with them and and he starts to sympathize and understand their, their struggles and their lives. And it's interesting to to see this, I think in contradiction with cold sweat. When this is an objectifying gaze in, you know, a domesticated environment, this is a newly discovered gaze, which has a lot of potential, I would say. But then, reaching my, my conclusion here, I have to maybe comment on that potentially a little bit. The film offside ends on a, I would say on an idealistic note. If you've watched it, it's, you know, it's an amazing shot of everyone being in in the bus they are being taken to the police station, but they're also listening to the football match on the radio. And what happens is that suddenly Iran wins the match. And, again, this is shot at this on the same day so the street gets busy the bus has to stop and then everyone, you know, has to leave there is no one who cares about anyone's gender anyone sexuality is this kind of opaque moment more or less when the soldier from Azerbaijan and the protagonist are all part of this nation as you can see in in the photo. This moment is fragile we realize this this moment is not something that that happens often, or is predictable. And on the other hand, we have cold sweats ending with a force being alone in her car, she has lost her job she has lost her partner. Yeah, lost her house too. But yet, she doesn't give up completely. She calls the live program and and comments again on her situation, as she had done before, and speaks up about her situation. So even though the two film kind of end again with with on different notes, but one thing they have in common. And that is that this this struggle is hasn't ended and the protagonist don't give up at the end, no matter how hard it is and Yeah, this is this is the note I want to end this myth that the struggle goes on. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you very very much guys you managed to squeeze in a lot into a very short time, which brings me to another point dear viewers. As we said this is just a taste that personally I would have liked to have heard far more from our speakers so in due course hopefully will have them come and speak to us a bit more. And also we've already lined up the second event for the LGBTQ Iran with an amazing speaker talking about classical Persian literature and different characters that were non gender normative non sexual normative about the terminology people use, and so hopefully you'll join us for that now meanwhile I can see quite a few questions have come in. So I'm going to just go through them one by one as they arrived everyone actually I'll go backwards. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for very inspiring. Barajan Malcolm Rakhshan asks, have the effects of Khomeini's fatwa extended beyond the borders of Iran, and into the broader and the global scope of sheer a jurisprudence jurisprudence consciousness in spaces like Lebanon and Iran. Thank you for this question. I think, if you're really interested in this part, it means sharia law and fear, I really recommend you the work of Ali poor that I mentioned also or the work of another researcher but in my, as I know the fatwa of Khomeini was at the same time of the fatwa of al-Tantawi in Egypt. And what have happened for Iran it was really I think it was really interesting but to really answering your question I should be more knowing about what happens in Shi'a, Tao and what are really the difference. But I think that in Lebanon in 2016 with the request of one trans man they have kind of legalizing this request for sexual reassignment surgery but all the time I think in Lebanon also in Iraq, the question of trans people is completely psychiatric in a psychiatric assessment and you should surely pass by a mandatory sterilization and sexual reconstruction I think is one of the most important. It means that in a Muslim country you cannot change your identity, your gender identity without deleting the adjectives that it's in your body as male or females you should so do a sterilization and then reconstruct your body in a completely in a binary form. So this is my information about your question but I think that the fatwa of Khomeini was surely influenced to other much the head or other religious authorities in Shi'a Tao but as I mentioned every time this is a fatwa especially for Iranian society and it's this kind of I think it's really it's not a Shi'a Tao it's not Islam in a previous perception is really little and little and little and very specializing. Wonderful thank you for that Bahar John. Now we're going to I'm going to go backwards and this amazing there's different questions coming in. I'm going to go on to a question that was asked from Zayna. How Zayna John how do you think new changes to internet censorship are likely to affect the LGBTQ community in Iran. Yeah, I think censorship has been almost always there and people have always found their way to express themselves and to access information. After so many years of using different anti filter softwares and VPNs. People already know how to go around it and I think it's not a big issue for people, but they are more concerned about their security because people have been arrested for what they have been doing on social media it has not been limited to LGBT community but also to other people who don't follow the norms including sexual norms. So I'm more concerned about how it will impact on everyday life of people but also people know how to protect their identity how to hide themselves so I think people know how to live in this kind of context. Thank you very much. A barrage and there's another question for you about self misidentification people who might find it easier or more convenient to identify as transsexual, even though they might not be. But they only have a hard time adjusting in a society as a feminine man for example without necessarily having gender dysphoria. So misidentification barrage and how does one miss self misidentification or self misrecognition. Yes, it's a yes it can happen in your own society like anyone anywhere else in any any other in every society that a trans person should pass by a protocol by a medical legal protocol. And maybe or surely in countries that homosexuality is criminalizing and any other gender identity as non binary is criminalizing. So these kinds of misrecognition or miss identity self misidentification can happen. But if I want to be more specialized talking about Iranian society. If a trans person identify him or herself as trans but he's not. What, what could be convenient for this person. Okay, she or she can go to this protocol and if successfully can pass the hours of therapy and diagnostic and she she's diagnosed sick as TS or trans, she just have two years. And then she she should under going sexual reassignment surgery. So, if this person really find this situation, and it's complete violence against her real identity, I think it's not as easy as we think that she can pass this protocol. Right, I didn't. I didn't have time to talk about is that when we talk in outside Iran, there is a very cliche image about trans people in Iran, because they are Muslims that because they are in a republic Islamic and because homosexuality is criminalizing trans people are people that they are gay or lesbians that they are going to their undergoing sexual reassignment surgery by force. And this kind of I think in this imagination about trans people. We don't see invisibilizing you we are we don't see a real trans that like anywhere else in the world can can really want to change her body or want to go to this protocol. And inside Iran, we find another discourses which is also victimize victimizing and also invisibilizing it means that in Iran we just have one and one and only one trans identity. This person is surely in binary and surely suffer from this situation and surely wish to undergoing sexual reassignment surgery and surely want to reconstruct sexual organ. But we have a lot of different identities that these identities are completely outsiders of Iranian protocol. So, yes, it can happens but I don't think that this person can find really this. Because if I compare my research from other academician, for example, Afsana Najmobadi and other researcher. It was really interesting that in Iran, based on this fatwa, you can have the authority for sexual reassignment surgery, and it wasn't limited. Once you have this authority, you can live in an opposite gender. And then, for example, after five years, six years, you can undergo sexual reassignment surgery. But recently, when I did my research, it's just two years. It means that if you don't change your body in two years, it's finished and you should restart. And I think this changing is because of the influence of Western media. Western media is that they produce a lot, this image of Iranian trans person that they are obligatory with this sexual reassignment surgery. I think one of the effect of all of these documentaries that show just one and only one identity as a trans in Iran is that they react to them because they want to show that no, it's not as easy as you think that everybody can be trans in Iran. So, this is my answer to your question. Thank you very much, Barajan. Shukr Vajand, there's a question for you. Do you in your research also look at films that are mostly made outside of Iran that seem to be quite marketable and produce a particular image of queer and trans people in Iran by tapping into who nationalist discourses. How do you put the films that you discuss in conversation with the ones that that Seema Shah Sari has mentioned. Yeah, this is a very interesting and important question that I had to ask myself at the beginning of my research and I kind of made the conscious choice of not really going deep into the films fiction films and also, of course, documentaries that have been produced outside of Iran, because I feel there is a gap where there is a lack of, you know, academic sources when it comes to films that have been produced in Iran. And what I noticed is this increase in Iranian films within Iran, since the early 2000s, as I mentioned, and at the same time there was this increase in the number of, you know, sources by Karim Minia and others on the political religious discourses. So my interest is really bringing this sort of shedding light on this interaction. But of course, as part of the wider discourse, these Iranian films inside Iran also interact with the films outside of the country. I would say that there is a wide range of films outside of the country. You have films like Circumstances or Circumstance, which for me personally was really difficult to watch. I don't know if you've watched it with a lot of, you know, it's it imagines a world that is not real and, you know, a different Iran kind of, and, you know, it has this Western gaze of what two Iranian lesbians are supposed to look like. You have other films like I am. I mean, Astrina, for example, which I think is interesting because it looks at specifically the case of two asylum seekers, Iranian asylum seekers. But yeah, it's a wide range of films. It would be difficult to categorize them. And definitely I would somehow write something on those films as well, but I wouldn't be able to go deeper into that. I hope that answers the question. Guys, we've got Asal Barhidi asking everybody, so she will go in terms of Baha Shukr-Ve Zainab, do you know how the cinema and theater or TV shows in Iran show the evolution of LGBTQ? Cinema, theater and TV, how we can see an evolution of LGBTQ in Iran. So should we start with Bahar, John? Okay, I think Shukr-Ve can better than me talk about this subject, but as I talk about Saman Arasvoo, and I don't know if he's here and if he can join us. But what Saman did in theater and in his performance, it was, I think Saman is the only person that talk about not only trans people, but all other non-binary, non-heterosexual people in his pieces. But as trans people and transgender identities legalize in Iran, as himself is trans, so he challenged people about this question. And I think in cinema I'm not really specializing and I let Shukr-Ve to answer you, but in theater, I think someone tried a lot to inform people about by question. As an opening question about transgender situation in Iran, he opens a lot of other questions to public, like for example, how to facing this shame when he ask public an audience to put nails on a man's body. It's a sense of shame to facing your shameless about this representation and this diversity. So I let Shukr-Ve to continue. Yeah, I also want to mention that my focus, I'm not a film critic as well. I do cultural analysis, so I look at these films as cultural objects, but to comment maybe from my personal observation with the films that have been coming up. I can tell that there is more representation, but then again, what kind of representation is it? I've been thinking of this one film, probably some of you know it, it's a new film, but I forgot the title. But there is a protagonist and she says she's a trans protagonist and he basically says that I am sick, I need sexual assignment surgery. And so there is this, I would say, different, there is different ways of bringing up this topic, but there are always those representations that add to the stigmatization and that have trans characters, you know, in a way reduce the trans character to someone who just wears clothes assigned to the other binary gender and so on. So I think it's not a, how do you say it's not a linear kind of evolution as it's represented in the films. You always have films that go a little bit deeper, try to criticize a little bit more and films that just stay in the surface. Then I've done have you got anything to say about films. Well, I'm not an expert when it comes to movies but I think something that is important to consider not only about films in Iran but also any cultural products anywhere else is that one thing is that how the characters are represented and one other thing is that how we interpret them as audiences and also as critics. And I think it's very important to consider when we see same sex attraction, it doesn't necessarily means that we are seeing a gay or lesbian character, especially when we have seen that character, in love with the other sex as well. So it is very common to say that, for example, this character who is living with this woman is, and she identify as a woman as well as a lesbian, and then think that, okay, she has been forced to marry that man, or she has never been interested in that man, and or she has been trying to live like heterosexual people. And because in Iran we never really directly can talk about same sex sexual attraction in cinema, then, of course, we never know how the characters identified but we have the same problem in cinema in Hollywood, for example. We often see people who are engaged in sex with more than one sex or character, one sex or gender, but we almost never hear the word bisexual, pansexual or queer, we always assume that anyone who is with their same sex are lesbian and gay. If I may interject, because I've been doing some studies on Iranian film music, so I've been watching films for the past 60 years, and one thing I noticed prior to the revolution, I don't know if people are aware but in Iran we have something called the luti, these sort of men who were the big men of the city, and there are real gay narratives within that, and I found that the characters that I would encounter in these films would be the gay characters, would be rather effeminate gay characters, sort of men who are slightly effeminate, but there was a real sense that there was something gay going on within the storyline. We were never shown it, and then I find that as I watch films post 1979 and especially after the 2000s, you are actually getting more nuanced characters. It's never out in the open, but there are far more characters that could be associated with the LGBT community in a bit more rounded way, before it really was the luti downtown Iranian matriman who had a male counterpart who was always effeminate. Now, a question I have here from Najd Al-Ali from all of you. Thank you for everyone for very interesting interventions. I wonder how you straddle the difficult challenge of advocating for LGBTQ issues and rights in relation to Iran, and the Iranian diaspora, and the context of the extremely precarious political situation in terms of sanctions in the threat of war. It came up just once in a quote by Bahar, but I assume Najd Ali Ali says it's relevant to all of you. So, what does an intersectional political position mean for you, and how you maneuver the highly polarized Iranian diaspora. How do you start with you, Zaynab? Yeah, this is very important. As I mentioned, the international context has a huge impact on the way that we think and talk about sexual orientation, and also more specifically in the context of asylum it's very important the way that that officers often from Western countries expect asylum seekers to behave based on their stereotypes that they have about who is a real gay, and that real gay is a middle class, a white man who has a specific open life and go to specific places. This is very important and also, it's very important how in diaspora a lot of activists think that they can choose what should be the priority of everyone, and often the minority right is silenced because of what is considered to be the more important political issues that people are encouraged to stay silent and don't criticize because the West can misuse it or Iranian regime can misuse it that women are not supposed to talk about hijab because it disturbed the way that Western media talk about Iran, or I don't know that same sexual conduct is not as important as issue of political prisoners. This makes talking about minority issue very hard because we are not considered as important as men, especially from dominant ethnicity who are talking about the most important political issues. Baha, John, have you got anything to say about this whole? I think Shukufa answered very well, but this is really, this is true types. As I told you, I face it a lot. It means that when I was in Iran for my research, every person that I met in institutions told me why you do this research, you are not in Iran. You are doing this research for whom, for which organization? It means that I'm as a researcher, I'm there and I want to stole the information of trans people or Iranian as a national information to them to here and here I faced also other people that they wanted me to more and more politicize my question and to be more as a political activist instead of as a sociologist or as a researcher. And it was really interesting for me and these quotes that I think another person also mentioned in questions that directly ask me, it means that when I started the interview with this person that was really unique because she was really happy to be in Iran and she was really greatful to Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa. And I've never heard the voice of this person. I said uniqueness because I've never heard in documentaries, in books, in words, in research, the voice of these kinds of trans people that they are in Iran. And she asked me why you do this research. You shouldn't do it because you are not in Iran. And it was really interesting for me and it shows that how the politics outside Iran, the discourse that's outside of Iran about trans subject is really in a stereotype forms, Iranian Islamic trans person, what could it be. And directly they put the criminalization of homosexuality. And this is how that's why I put pressure to that is our both the discourse that invisibilized this multiple form of identification and subjectification in Iranian society. And it was a challenge for me to be neutral to be to do my research as a researcher and to critique and even it's political I critique I critique it, and to not be only as an activist who just critic the system and the discourse but what trans people also believes and they share with us. That's really good actually because that in a roundabout way answers a question of Chandy's about this idea of the unique voice. Shekhove John have you got anything to say about this political situation and how it impacts your studies. Yeah, just a quick comment because of course my research is less related. I mean, less dependent on actual individuals and more working with the films, but I still find it challenging to find platforms. I mean, this is a great opportunity. But usually the platforms or the opportunity given given to us oftentimes are, you know, as mentioned, we were put in a situation where we have to use a lot of disclaimers. This is not what I'm saying. This is not what I'm saying because there is so many stereotypes and so many pre judgments that first all year for it goes to kind of undoing that and then maybe you get to bring up a certain topic and yeah again I agree with Zaynab and Bahar that this isn't a topic. It's not a luxury topic. We're talking about actual human beings who, you know, come from a particular ethnicities, social classes and all these films represent those that those characters that are visible to some extent, but there are queer individuals working class women and trans men who are, as Zaynab said, you know, it's untellable stories really. So we're dealing with an unjust system, we're dealing with this fight for changing things, not only for queer people, but changing things for the better. Wonderful. This is an interesting question because this whole idea we started off with the idea of language and normal culture and the problems we have in translating different concepts to different countries with their own notions. The Persian disciple asks, as a non binary person, I haven't found a satisfying word for non binary in my native language Farsi. So our three researchers have you got any suggestions for such a term have we even found such a term. So should we start with you Shukr for John and then we'll go to Zaynab and Bahar. Zaynab and Bahar. Okay, so should we take Zaynab and Bahar to Zaynab John, Aval have you come up with it, have you come across a term. Well, as a non binary person, I use a gen siyate kheire dogane, which is like direct translation, and some people have already used that for almost two years now. And some people are not happy with that and still they use non binary because as I said people tend to use English terminologies in the Persian speaking LGBT communities. For example, I was told by my interview is that they have never met anyone who use dojenskera they always say bisexual. And I think people don't learn. My research also shows that that people don't learn terminologies and concepts from Persian speaking activists like us, they learn it directly from English pop culture and also English social media. It's one of the reasons that they are not interested to use the Persian words that we create for ourselves, and we fight over it, and always we challenge each other if they are good translation or not. We are the only one who are concerned about this translations. And Bahar John anything to say on the matter. No, I think it's complete. Wonderful. Now guys, I think this is really interesting question. How do this your researchers feed into the whole feminist debate in contemporary Iran. Are there any specific contest stations that transpire and that's from Sabiha. So we'll start with Bahar then we'll go Zainab Shukr. Go on Bahar John. Unfortunately, but what I, I can say that in Iran the feminist discourses in Iran, they don't talk about trans people, and there isn't any, maybe I'm wrong, you can correct me, but I didn't find any feminist in Iran that talk about trans people that criticize their issues they criticize their situation and they, they add them, not just add them because they are not there to add other peoples as women, but they don't talk about, for example, the issues that a trans woman facing in everyday lives. I didn't find anything in inside feminism in Iran. As a feminist, there is a different form of feminist some feminists are radical feminist and all the time, for example, that I talk about trans women as women, and I add them to my presentation when I'm talking about women for for eight of years, they criticize me, but some feminists are more open, and they add. So the issues of trans people also in their discourses, but generally, generally, I think that what is the difference that we can find in Iranian society, comparing other society that have that have a very great progress. Because, because of feminists that really criticizing these pathological discourses about trans people, but in Iran, unfortunately, I didn't find really too much working in these courses. Okay, Zaynab John, anything feminist thoughts has affected. That's a very important issue, and I think we need to talk about it more in Persian speaking communities, I actually talked about it in a feminist conference, which is for mostly for diaspora activists but also some activists from Iran, managed to join it every year that in Iran, it is very hard to talk about sexual orientation and even gender identity feminist movement because of the pressure from the government and also because of the stereotypes that society has, but even abroad, female feminist activists who have lived here for several decades, they still don't talk about these issues that much, they still talk about gender and sex in the binary of men and women, they still don't think about sexual orientation that much, they don't even educate themselves to be able to talk about it correctly, they don't really care about it, but there are also activists who identify as queer activists or in their intersectional understanding of feminism they consider sexual orientation and gender identity, and also inside the LGBTQ movement. There are people who self identify as feminists and they understand how feminism is important in their fight for equality based on sexual orientation and gender identity, not only among people who identify as women or non binary but also among people who identify as men, as gay bisexual men or trans men, so I think we can have hope for the future but at the moment, yeah, this is an issue that has not been taken into account that much. Thank you for that, Shukriva-jan, anything to add? I agree completely, I just want to mention that I think what Bahad explain this, you know, the legalization of sexual assignment surgery in Iran is itself important for women's rights issues related to that context because of course that legalization has happened within this mapping of gender and sexuality so it becomes interesting when you look at, you go a little bit deeper and you see, you know, for example, if heterosexual couple, both of them transition and they have a kid, which one becomes the father legally and I think if I'm not mistaken Bahad correct me if I'm wrong but legally the trans woman becomes, is still the father of the child while the trans man who was the mother doesn't have the same authority and I think that says something about, you know, this paternal the whole family structure and the importance of being a father and that authority but so issues like this I think can be really, really essential to both kinds of research but I don't see that in the research community that I'm in touch with unfortunately. Thank you for that. I was informed just now there's been a brilliant play written by Sunars Bayan called Blue Pink about trans experiences in Iran. I found a very interesting question about the COI, because I think we should use some of this technical knowledge we have here. Zeynab Jan, how do you think that the COI available to asylum case workers adequately reflect the situation that LGBTQ and people face in Iran with enough detail enabling the case worker to take the right decision. So how do you think the situation is the COI. First of all, I think it's important to consider that no country of origin information document can ever be complete. Because these are only documents that are produced either by human right organization like human right watch or by embassies and other governmental and non governmental organizations and even if they get updated regularly even if they consider different gender identity and sexual orientation that they don't do that. They still are only documents and no one can really assess anyone else sexual orientation and gender identity, especially when they are from another context, especially when they are in a context like asylum hold the idea of checking if someone is telling the truth or not in the asylum process is not really acceptable and should be challenged, but it's important to see that all the country of origin documents are mostly about gay men, they regularly consider other groups of people in the LGBTQ communities doesn't matter by whom they have been produced for which country, there is almost never anything about bisexuals in those documents. Okay, we have a question here from valley salon valley john. Baha and it's a question for everyone but thanks to everyone he says for the great presentations Baha. How do you differentiate self identification where individual human beings identify and express themselves in particular and individual ways. And the paradigm of rights issues, legal rights, state sanctioned violence or state sanctioned recognition and protection of the rights and well being of the individuals and groups by law so how do we make these two meet. I think as I mentioned in my work, there is surely self identification it's not something coming from the person as a subject without influence of anything else there is discourses there is religious discourse love family love everything. But in the liars that I show you in gender normativity so not as trans or not trans we are all constructed in these processes of what we can see it's interactive it's interactive it is not just outside of us that create this self identification I think it's a both side. And if your question is that how in this situation that other discourses like love like anything that it's in society is important for a trans person that that I said, as a self identification I think that gender transition starts by a self identification when a trans person is still a child, she or he starts to affirm this identification that he or she feels and it's in face of her family or his family and and then a school and then bigger and bigger and bigger. And all the time, this is a process so identity for in my town and from the philosophical talks that I'm inspired by identities all the time a process is a process and one part as Rikor says it's a item, as we can find in a word of identity is either it means the same. So we are, we are the same parents we are the color of our eyes that it's it will, it will stay wanting forever, but it's the other parts of identity that is in, in perpetual, if I say like that in English I don't know, but in French, he said in perpetual construction and identity is all the time in a process of construction so all the time I think all the discourses is important but trans people, they are not, we can, we can find an agency in Iranian trans people. It means that they are not all the time forced to to identify themselves as trans because I showed you, it is not as easy as we can imagine, but surely there are some form of civilization and there are some trans people that they become the outsiders of this protocol for example in Iran. So for me identity and self identification is a process and in all the time in an interactive way between subject and society. One thing, Aki John someone at us to has actually put their hand up. I wonder if there's any way that we can bring someone into the panel. Please, can we check into that because someone is a very important character within Iran. Yep, thank you Aki John. So someone you're going to be coming online soon. I believe we should take, I wonder where someone is. Oh, there we go. Salam. This is someone as to who Bahar Azad he spoke about. He's one of the most important trans characters within Iran whose presence is very important. I would like to say hello to the viewers of Bahar Azad and Zainab Azad. Thank you for this program. I would like to say that our theaters, cinemas and television work for the people. I would like to say thank you for speaking with us, Afsai. Not only to the international community, but also to the audiences. It's not about the cinema itself. It's about the gender. And it's more about the salary of the people in these two films. I mean, the Kalboteh Kaffee that I worked on, that I talked about in the spring and summer, about the transfer of the situation and the transfer of the bisexual situation, this was with the president that he said that it would be very little talk about these issues, but we are going to build a culture center and we are going to speak to the people in the name of the children. That's the system. So someone kindly told us that basically he thanked all the speakers, everybody for being here. He said that the theater cinema and television of Iran is for the good of some. It is not for the purpose of art and for the largely speaking everybody, the people. It's not for the peoples. It's just for Hoshayan. It is just for the benefit of a few. Now, he also mentioned that the films that Shukrufejan showed, the cold sweat and offsite, there were no, I will use his terms, he used the term homosexual, but I presume the word gay is preferable here. There are no gay representations in the cinema. Whilst the cinema of Iran is highly gender-ridden, it is much more of a patriarchal society. So in both these films, we see this male patriarchal society at play. And he also mentioned that the theater that he does, about the trans have within it gay trans and bisexual trans. And their idea is to get the story across to people in the simplest manner in the language that everybody understands. Thank you very much. Saman, do you want to say anything else? Thank you. I hope that without any hesitation, the work will continue. And there will be many challenges. For example, during the time that Goddard has worked in the censor, and Siddhashtro and everyone else, it will be in the censor very well every day. I think that the ten minutes of the new Samsung, and the new devices and the screenings, would not have been possible. He is saying that let us have an art without borders to be able to reach beyond the red lines, like the time of Goddard, where within censorship, one could still make art felt. Saman, I hope that during your time, you will allow us to make sure that in LGBTQ, we have our Iranians. I hope that we can have them as well. I would be very happy. Thank you very much. I wish you all the best. Thank you, Saman. What an honor to have Saman here with us. And hopefully in due course, Saman is going to provide some content for our program in due course. Hobacha, we have got five more minutes left. I don't know, because they've been, I just want to make sure that everyone knows, please forgive us if we weren't able to ask your questions. And there's another question for everybody. And I like this question, because this has always been of interest to me, because within Iran, as many people know, we have this societal thing of Andaruni, Biruni, and we've had all this sort of, as very quite rightly Malcolm Rakhshan points out, we have a lot of homo social intimacies, which are very pronounced in the country. And I think ideas of homosexuality really came to us from the Western canon of ideas in Persia and in the East. We do have different ideas about third genders and so forth. So, Bacha, the final question is, do you believe that the homo social intimacies, which are pronounced and identifiable in Iranian society, have impacted or complicated queer imagery, narrative and semiotics in cultural and aesthetic discourses? So, Bahrajan, we'll start with you. Let's see. Yes, I know, I understood the question. But I think the homo erotism is part of queerness. I didn't understand the question exactly. I mean that I think the effect shouldn't be negative because it's inside queerness and inside how this person identified him or herself and without talking about the terms. I don't know. Maybe Zaynab can answer better than me or Shukufel. But I don't find any difficulties for queerness or I think it's a part of this. And these terms, I like these terms as homo eroticism because it's not in a modernization, in a modernization form of science and psychiatric and it's really outside of all of these discourses. I think that the thing here was homo social intimacies because of the Islamic world separation of male and female, we have had sort of a long history of certain events happening between men and between women. He's saying this earlier idea or way of being in our country, in Persia, does that complicate issues or for you know, it's part and parcel of the whole thing. I think that this idea about Iran or other Muslim countries that there is a very huge sexual segregation between people is one of the very famous idea about people but I don't think that it can really create the identity of a person. And it's not only for Iran. I think even in outside of Iran, these form of relations between two sex can happen for someone can be just in some years of, for example, when they're a child or in adolescence and then they can change but it's not an identity. I don't believe that this identity is, as I told you, I told the process and it's in an interactive ways. I don't think that that can determine identity of person or sexual orientation of person, this context. Okay. Jane up John, have you guys got anything to add about this homosexuality and how that affects the studies? Well, I think same-sex sexual attraction has been existed in different societies. It's not something unique about Iran or Middle East, but we all know that pathologization of same-sex sexual conduct is a modern new discourse from 19th centuries. And as I said, it has been adopted in Iran as well. So there has been criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct even before the Islamic Revolution in Iran. And that was an idea that was adopted from Western countries and also the idea of being able to claim to cure someone for their same-sex sexual attraction has been existed in Iran before the Revolution as well. So I think we have adopted a specific form of homophobia and biphobia and LGBT phobia from Western countries and also the idea of the binary understanding of same binary understanding of sexual orientation is also a new modern concept, thinking that everyone have to choose and be attracted only to one sex or gender. These are new things. And I'm sure that you all know how nationalist modernists reacted to these discourses and tried to modernize society by encouraging people and also forcing people to be only with the gender that is considered to be the opposite sex or gender. And still people have negative attitude toward same-sex sexual conduct because of that modernist nationalist discourse. These are important things to consider when we talk about our history and when we talk about sexual orientation and the impact of Western discourses in understanding sexual orientation. Brilliant. Shekouve Jan, have you got anything to add? Okay. So ladies and gentlemen, that draws us to close. And in a way, this whole thing about homosocial intimacies is a brilliant segue to our next program because we will have a really amazing specialist talking about classical Persian literature and the presence of characters outside the non-binary gender sexual normative ideas. I hope you've enjoyed today and I hope that we get to have more talks like this because for me, I got into all of this. I haven't got to know a little bit about the Iranian and Islamic LGBTQ. I've begun to realize how complex the issues are and how the conversation needs to increase. So please, you have all of our emails. Get in touch. Get in touch with me if you have any ideas, any books, any plays, anything that needs to be discussed under this umbrella term. So thank you very much to our speakers. Thanks a lot, guys. And I hope to have you guys back to do proper talks, proper full-length talks. And Aki Jan, is there anything to add or are we done for today? Yes, I think it's all good. Thanks a lot Aki Jan. My pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate all of you for the presentation. Oh, God. Yes, God. I enjoy the day. Thank you everyone for sticking with us for such a long time. And we'll wave a good bye to everyone. Merci, Merci Hameghi. Merci. Thank you, so Aki Jan, if you close the session,