Ahmad is a woman. Though brought up as a boy, he always felt more like a woman and later discovered he was a hermaphrodite — he had both male and female sexual characteristics. He tells Sayidaty, a sister publication of Arab News, about his struggle to become the woman nature intended him to be.
His Story
Ever since I was a young boy, I felt that I was different. I was extremely introverted and more inclined to sitting and playing with girls than boys. My early years at the boys’ school were a nightmare. But when I complained to my father he would reproach me and tell me to grow up.
After finishing my secondary education I decided to study abroad, wanting to escape the hell I was living in. I went to Lebanon where I received my high school diploma. For the first time I felt free, although I continued to wear men’s clothes and enrolled in the school as a male.
After High School I decided to go to college in the US, and there a new stage of my life began. I went to a clinic and there I was told I had a gender differentiation disorder, and this explained my gender dysphoria — the fact that I had always felt more like a woman. A gender differentiation disorder means that I had both male and female sexual attributes, but in my case the doctor said I was predominantly female. He told me that surgery to adjust my gender was simple but costly. I couldn’t bring up the courage to ask my father to bear the costs of the operation because I knew that he would categorically refuse to do so.
But I began to wear women’s clothes — T-shirts and pants. In the second year of college my sister phoned to say it was imperative I come back to the Kingdom because my father was ill. He died and I remained in the country for a month. We each received our share of the inheritance and I returned to the US to finish my education with more than a million riyals in the bank. Before he died I had told my father that I intended to undergo surgery but he said that he would disown me because I would bring shame on the family through such action.
But now I was able to have the operation, which was quite simple, and I immediately began to feel better about myself and to live my life normally. After finishing my education I got a job in a big IT company as a woman while also registering for a Masters degree.
After the events of Sept. 11 and subsequent harassment of Arabs I decided to move to France, where I lived and worked — also as a woman — before moving back to Saudi Arabia. I came back here as a man since on my passport and official papers I am still male. I didn’t tell my family what I had done, and my mother died without knowing the truth. Then one day I sat my eldest sister down and told her of my being a woman. She fainted from shock and woke up screaming abuse at me, accusing me of bringing shame on the family.
The next day I told my brother and sisters my secret, and they too hurled abuse at me — their parting words were: “You are not our brother and we don’t know you. We will never set foot in your house again.” They also threatened to take legal action to deprive me of half my inheritance, and they did.
His Lawyers
Lawyer and Legal Consultant Ashraf Muhammad Al-Siraj who is handling the case refused to give his legal opinion since the case is still before the courts. He says that what is more important is that his client’s legal status is amended so that he can get on with his life. Lawyer Nayef Muhammad Fawzi Yamani said Ahmad took his rightful share in the inheritance as a male, and since the law is not applied retrospectively the heirs have no right to re-divide the inheritance.
The Opinion of Islam
Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Misnad says that the heirs have no right in Shariah or in Law to re-distribute the inheritance because it had been divided when the heir was male.
Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Qader says that God revealed the rules of inheritance for males and females — hermaphrodites are not mentioned. But essentially, in the case of a hermaphrodite the inheritance is divided according to the marks that appear on them — in this case the person appears to be a female and therefore the inheritance must be re-distributed.
Medical Opinion
Professor Abdallah Basalamah, Consultant Gynecologist at Baksh Hospital in Jeddah says: “According to science sex change operations are of two kinds. The first is where a male changes into a female. The second is an adjustment where the sex of a person is restored to a near-natural condition, as in the case of sex differentiation disorders.
The first is unlawful under Shariah law. A gender adjustment, however, is a necessity — it is a form of medical treatment, which is imperative in order to return the newborn, child or adult to his or her natural state. Cases that require such surgery are often discovered at birth but sometimes not until after puberty with a simple medical examination. In order to find out the true gender of a person we look at four factors that make up gender: External and internal reproductive organs, reproductive glands, the chromosomes and finally we examine the mental state of this person. Only the outside appearance changes — whether that woman can marry and bear children depends on the presence of internal female reproductive organs prior to the operation.
The adjustment is done with both surgery and hormone treatment.
-Arab News Local Features 29 August 2003
