Trans man becomes first person to seek gender surgery in United Arab Emirates
This would be the first legal case of gender reassignment surgery in United Arab Emirates history.
A trans Emirati man is petitioning the Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance for permission to have gender assignment surgery.
The 29-year-old is the first person in the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) legal history to bring a case of this kind to court.
The court will hear the case on September 28.
The man filed a lawsuit through her lawyer, Ali al-Mansouri.
Earlier this week, al-Mansouri told Gulf News on that his client feels he is not the gender he physically appears to be.
“Ever since she was three, the woman felt instead that she is actually a male,” Mansouri said.
Gender reassignment was legalised in the UAE for transgender people a month ago.
“The surgical procedure by which a transgender person’s physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble that of their identified gender is permitted if it is part of a treatment for gender dysphoria in transgender people, as advised by a medical commission to be set up for this purpose,” the new law specifies.
Mr. al Mansuri says his client has been receiving psychiatric treatment since 2012 and is seeking surgery after being advised to do so following a medical report.
Homosexuality is still strongly criminalised in the UAE, and carries penalties ranging from a month in prison to the death penalty.
There are also strict laws forbidding public displays of affection, with two men were jailed in 2012 for allegedly ‘fondling’.
Earlier this year, a British gay couple complained about rude treatment in an airport in Dubai.
The pair said they had been detained in the airport while staff “laughed about their sexuality’
A British man was also jailed in Dubai in 2012 on gay sex charges.
