PETALING JAYA: A lawyer has urged Putrajaya to initiate discussions to clear the air on the status of people who have undergone sex change operations.
Fahri Azzat, a civil liberties lawyer, said the discussions should be among religious scholars and experts in the legal, medical, psychological and sociological fields.
Speaking to FMT, he said there was a need for Malaysia’s polity and general society to get out of the “massive grey area” that they were now in with regard to the status of those who have changed their sex.
He also said he believed there was no point in insisting that a person remain in a particular gender if he or she refuses to comply with expectations or regulations.
Fahri was commenting on the controversy sparked by videos showing transgender Nur Sajat in a woman’s prayer attire in Mecca. It was she who posted the videos on the internet.
Nur Sajat, who identifies as a woman, is an entrepreneur whose MyKad name is Muhammad Sajad Kamaruzzaman. She assumed the identity of a man when she entered Saudi Arabia.
Fahri said transgenders should not be ostracised or condemned, adding that he hoped for “practical decisions” from the discussions he was proposing.
“We have this problem and we need to know how can we integrate transgender people into our social matrix,” he said.
Lim Wei Jiet, a lawyer with the National Human Rights Society, called for official recognition of surgical sex changes.
He said all official documents should state the new sex of the person who had undergone such an operation.
Another lawyer, Haniff Khatri Abdulla, said Malaysian Muslims wanting official recognition of sex changes were bound by Islamic laws.
“Whether Nur Sajat is a male of female will depend on Islamic laws,” he said. “It is not subject to her personal wishes.”
He said the issue had been dealt with in depth in Islamic law.
He also said Saudi authorities had told Tabung Haji that anyone wishing to perform the haj or the umrah must be either male or female.
The Saudi position was that there was no religious obligation for transgenders to perform either of the rites, he added. - FMT
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