Hiba recalls the depression she felt when Imad, as she was called, discovered he was not a “complete man.”

“I discovered at 18 that I was incapable of any male sexual behavior and I was deeply embarrassed by the girls who looked at me with pity and preferred to stay away,” Hiba said. “I took poison several times and tried to drown myself.” When his conservative father threw him out of the house in 1997, Imad tried to start a new life working in a Gulf Arab country. But his problems followed him.

After three years, Imad was fired and admitted to a mental hospital where he tried to commit suicide three times. He was also jailed for failing to pay back a bank loan and for homosexual behavior, a sin in Arab societies. But it was then that things took a turn for the better.

“The most important thing that happened to Imad during his sojourn was that he met an Iraqi cleric who sent him to a gland specialist, who in turn established that Imad’s original gender was female and that he should recover his nature,” Hiba said.

“The cleric assured Imad that having a sex change did not contradict the teachings of Islam, which aim to serve the interests of humanity and ensure the happiness of people,” she said.

Medical tests confirmed that Imad’s genes were mainly those of a female, and that his female hormones were more active and pronounced than his male ones.

Dr. Muhammad Hassan, the plastic surgeon who performed the surgery by replacing Imad’s atrophic male organs with female ones, said, “Such an operation necessitates solid medical tests proving that the transformation could be possible, as well as psychological reports and legal approvals allowing the change of gender in the official records.”

Hassan said cases such as Imad’s were not very common in the Arab world, as many who suffer genetic disorders tend to conceal the fact.

“I now live in peace with myself,” Hiba said. But only Hiba’s mother has accepted her transformation, “as God’s wish.” The rest of her family has rejected her.

AFP