Be Like Others

Be Like Others also known as Transsexual in Iran is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about transsexuals in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexual identity while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Tehran gender reassignment clinic. The film played at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, winning three awards.

Throughout the film, the patients of the sexreassignment clinic assert that they are not homosexual, seeing homosexuality as something that is shameful and immoral. Eshaghians opinion is that this shame is the driving force behind so many Iranians deciding to change their sex. She says that identifying as transsexual rather than homosexual allows them to live free from harassment.Eshaghian, an Iranian American filmmaker, got the idea for Be Like Others after reading a 2004 New York Times article about sexchange operations happening in Iran and being surprised that such an operation would be acceptable in a Muslim country. She wrote a proposal for a film and tried to find funding, but was unsuccessful. She contacted a British journalist who had written on the subject and he gave her telephone numbers for Dr. Bahram MirJalali and the Muslim cleric featured in the film. To find subjects, she visited the predominant sexreassignment clinic in Iran, and spent time in the waitingroom talking to patients and their families. She found that femaletomale transsexuals were generally very successful in living as their new gender and as a result were reluctant to take part in the documentary for fear of being outed as transsexual. She felt that the contrasting stories of Ali and Anoosh highlighted the importance of family bonds in Iranian society. At a question and answer session at the Sundance Film Festival, Eshaghian said that one of the men she met while filming decided to live as a gay man rather than become a woman, and that she is now trying to help him leave Iran. ........

Source: Wikipedia