"Be Like Others"

After reading Najmabadi's essay concerning sex change operations in Iran, learning that it is considered a way to be able to be attracted to someone in the "right" form (becoming a woman if you are a man who loves a man, or a man if you are a woman who loves a woman), I began to search for more information about this and found that Iran is one of the world's largest centers for sex change operations.

http://www.belikeothers.com/

I also found a film that was shown at Sundance in 2008 which is about this very same topic. I never knew this was such an active conversation and controversial aspects of life in Iran.

There is a chance to watch a few of the clips on the film's website, and one of the men who is about to undergo a sex-change operation is told by his mother that what he is feeling is just a "desire" and nothing more. The mother overall seems to be very worried about her son's operation, wanting him to conform or if not, just act the way that he does within the boundaries of their home. The fact that she calls what he has with his boyfriend and what he feels like inside as simply a "desire" to be something else or to get attention is astounding to me. What makes someone else able to identify that what you feel for someone else is purely desire, or is something that you are choosing to feel, so therefore can stop feeling that way all the same?