AllMovie

Filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian explores the proliferation of gender reassignment surgery in a society where homosexuality is punishable by death in this documentary that ponders the extreme measures taken by gay Iranians who risk execution if the truth about their sexuality is uncovered. In Iran, to be homosexual is to live in fear. Yet despite the fact that homosexual men and women in Iran risk their lives simply by revealing their sexual preferences, the fact that prominent sex-change surgeon Dr. Bahram Mir-Jalali performs more gender reassignment surgeries in one year than the entire country of France does in one decade offers telling insight into a culture that accepts both genders though refuses to acknowledge any gray area in between. For an emerging generation of men and women who are forced by theocracy to deny their true selves, this drastic transformation provides the only hope for survival.