Saed News: The bride knew herself that she was neither a woman nor a man, and she had to do something in her wedding dress, even if it meant dishonoring her family!
Saed News Report: I am Sheima, a "transgender" who became known as the "runaway bride," but before my gender was male or female, I am human! A human searching for my lost identity.
The Transgender from Mashhad Wore a Wedding Dress
I wish instead of humiliation, mockery, and unjust judgment, people could understand me a bit... These sentences are part of the statement of a 23-year-old young person who, with a heart full of pain but a heart brimming with hope and love for life, stepped into the social circle of the Shafa Police Station in Mashhad.
In describing my problem to the counselor and social worker at the station, I said: Since my childhood, I was different from my peers. I was a girl but had masculine and boyish traits. Most of the time when we went to the toy store, I chose police cars, swords, and guns instead of beautiful dolls.
Feeling Like a Boy in a Girls' School
Many times, my father would take away the police car and gun from me, saying: "My daughter, the police car is a boy's toy, you are a girl, choose another toy. Look, these blonde-haired dolls are so beautiful." My father would buy me dolls by force, but my eyes would always search for the police car! When I entered a girls' school, my problems increased, and I couldn't connect well with my peers.
Transgender Operation for the Mashhadi Transgender
I didn’t have many friends; sometimes I would fight with the girls at school and beat them up! The school officials would call my parents, and they would scold me. Among relatives and neighbors, I mostly played with boys and preferred to play cop and robber with them instead of playing house with the girls! However, I was often mocked by those around me. I really didn’t understand why they mocked me, because I just wanted to be myself, and they unfortunately didn’t understand this.
When I reached puberty, my problems worsened. Everyone expected me to be a teenage girl with the same delicate emotions and traits that everyone expects, but I was a teenage boy who stubbornly wanted to prove that I had become a man for myself.
Changing My Appearance to Match My Identity
Sometimes I would wear my older brother’s clothes and go out with a boyish look. My mother would cry upon seeing this, and my father would struggle with me and sometimes hit me. They thought I had gone astray and needed to be disciplined. I had no choice but to retreat into my loneliness. What was my sin? Why didn’t anyone understand me? Everyone either laughed at me, mocked me, or cursed me and scolded me.
My father, to punish me, would cut off my pocket money, but I would still go out in boyish clothes and worked to support myself. Sometimes I did construction work, other times tiling, and so on.
Deciding to Undergo Gender Reassignment Surgery
As I reached young adulthood, I decided to visit a psychologist to solve my problem. After consulting with several psychologists and psychiatrists, they diagnosed me as "transgender." I am a person who has masculine and boyish traits trapped in a female body. They suggested that I undergo gender reassignment surgery, but when I discussed this with my family, they strongly opposed it. They thought I wanted to bring shame to their name.
So my father decided to marry me off to perhaps solve my problem. But whenever anyone came to propose, I acted in a way that would make them regret wanting to marry me. For example, I would behave badly, say something rude, or spill the tea on the groom's lap! They would leave, never to return, until one of my suitors accepted me with all my behavior and set a wedding date. In the blink of an eye, they took me to the beauty salon and put a wedding dress on me. I had no choice but to run away from the wedding table in my bridal dress, and thus I became the runaway bride!
Now, I have been renting a small room for a long time, and I drive a car that I bought with my savings to work as a taxi driver to pay for my gender reassignment surgery. I haven't seen my family for a long time, and I miss them terribly, but they left me no choice. Despite everything, I remain hopeful for the future. I hope that one day I can have a peaceful and ordinary life away from the mocking looks of others. A day when my family will accept me as their son, not their daughter! A day when the smirks and ridicules of those around me will stop, and I can emerge from this prison of isolation and loneliness that I have found myself in.
