When I was recovering from my sex reassignment surgery in August of 1994 at Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah, WI, I did my required walking with the woman in the next room, who was a non-Kuwaiti working in Kuwait.
I thought of her when I learned about this report from Human Rights Watch: They Hunt us Down for Fun: Discrimination and police violence against transgender women in Kuwait (63 page pdf).
They hunt us down for fun. They don’t want me to dress like a woman so I don’t. I wear a dishdasha (traditional Kuwaiti male garment) now. I cut my hair short. After all that I was still arrested, beaten, and raped for having a smooth, feminine face. What can I do about my face?
–Amani, 24, Kuwait City, February 8, 2011
At one time a relatively good place for transpeople among the nations of the Arabian peninsula, Kuwait attitude towards transgenders changed with the amendment of article 198 of the country's penal code in 2007. Article 198 was previously a generic law about public decency, but the amendment made it illegal to "imitate the opposite sex in any way". The punishment for violating the law was one year in prison, a fine of 1000 Kuwaiti dinars or both.
Note that the amendment did not criminalize any behavior or action, but rather just appearance. Application of the law would depend solely on the perception of individual police.
Since that time police have used the amended law to harass, sexually assault and arbitrarily arrest transwomen. Human Rights Watch documents in the report
the physical, sexual and emotional abuse and persecution that transgender women face at the hands of police, and it documents the discrimination that transsexual women face on a daily basis—including in public more generally—due to the law, which in itself constitutes a human rights violation.
Thirty-nine of the 40 transgender women whom Human Rights Watch interviewed said they were arrested, some as many as nine times. In most cases (54 out of 62) the court either acquitted or failed to reach a verdict, although transgender women claim that police forced them, threatening or engaging in physical violence, to sign a declaration stating they would “never again imitate the opposite sex” before releasing them. Only 2 of the 62 cases resulted in convictions (between six months to a year’s imprisonment).
All the women interviewed described some form of police abuse, at times rising to the level of torture, degrading and humiliating treatment, and sexual assault or harassment— although police deny mistreatment.
While Kuwaiti media have reported a small number of arrests of transmen, Human Rights Watch found that it was significantly less of a problem than the arrests of transwomen, probably because of the difficulty inherent in trying to decide what constitutes gender-transgressive clothing for women. Additionally, police fear accusations of sexually harassing women, a charge that is taken very seriously in Kuwait.
Among the abuses transgender women report suffering at the hands of police are beatings and physical abuse with fists and cables, verbal taunts, and humiliation that includes forcing them to clean toilets and being paraded naked inside the police station. Sexual harassment is also a common complaint. In some cases transgender women reported that police had blackmailed them for sex, threatening them with arrest if they did not comply, an act that constitutes sexual assault. Several transgender women have told Human Rights Watch that police use the law and vulnerability of transgender individuals as a way to have easy, consequence-free sex.
Clearly a transwoman who refuses to be blackmailed into committing a sex act is acting "gender transgressively". Only "real" women are allowed to act that way.
Before the law we had no problems, we would come and go as we pleased and be out in public safely.... When we were stopped at checkpoints and the police would ask us for our IDs and see that we were male they would just smile or even find us cute and let us pass. In the worst of cases they would try to take our numbers to arrange for a date. So there was harassment, but rarely was it as violent as it is now. After the law came out, I started hearing that X was in prison, Y was in prison. I lived in fear and terror. I felt like I couldn’t move, but it is my right to go out, to go to the souk, to go to the doctor.
There is no specific law in Kuwait preventing sex reassignment surgery, but only in one court case was there a decision to grant a transwoman permission to have her sex on her legal identity papers changed from male to female. And that decision was overturned on appeal.
Thus judges base their decisions on cases involving transpeople on their personal convictions.
Conservative forces in parliament are pushing a bill, however, that would explicitly ban both sex reassignment surgery and "gender correction".
Now the Kuwaiti medical establishment recognizes gender identity disorder as a legitimate medical condition and the Ministry of Health even provides transpeople with documentation certifying the disorder, but the law continues to criminalize those diagnosed with the condition.
Transgender women have reported that ordinary citizens in public spaces report them to police, encouraged by an unrelenting vilification campaign in Kuwaiti media that portrays them as a destructive force and a threat to the fabric of Kuwaiti society. They also said that hospital doctors have reported them to police after noting the gender on their government- issued IDs, which they are required to present, does not match their appearance and presentation—effectively limiting their access to health care. Even driving around the city can be perilous, with transgender women reporting that they risk police picking them up at numerous checkpoints on main highways and side streets. Indeed, the situation has become so dire that many transgender women said they live under what amounts to self- imposed house arrest to avoid the dangers that police and the broader public pose.
Human Rights Watch concludes:
The police abuse and torture that is at the center of this report is itself a grave violation of human rights, irrespective of the law allegedly broken. The amendment to article 198 and its consequences violate fundamental principles of human rights enshrined in international conventions to which Kuwait is a signatory. By criminalizing an individual’s gender expression and identity, the law violates the right to non-discrimination, equality before the law, free expression, personal autonomy, physical integrity, and privacy. The consequences of the amendment further violate the right to health and accessible health care without discrimination. The law adds to the vulnerability of an already marginalized population, making redress for egregious police abuses against them, including sexual assault and torture, difficult due to fear of reprisal.
There are some supporters inside Kuwait.
In terms of [transsexuals’] rights as citizens, we need to separate between our opinions of their behavior and our professional duties. A doctor should not deny treatment to a person because he or she appears to be “imitating.” Likewise, a police officer must listen to citizens’ complaints even if he disagrees with their dress or behavior.
--Dr. Aseel Al-Awadi, one of the first four women members of parliament, who were elected in 2009
Is a man’s long hair an imitation of women? What about dyeing the hair or the beard with henna? Wearing kohl (a black eye cosmetic)? A lot of these practices are part of Arab heritage and some of them were even practiced by the prophet.
--Sout al Kuwait, a Kuwaiti human rights group
Kuwaiti Transwomen's Voices:
If anyone touches me, I have no right to complain. My body is there to be violated. This is what the government did: it turned my body into a receptacle for depraved Kuwaiti men. And then they call me deviant? They punish me?
—Samira, 26, Kuwait City, February 11, 2011
They have turned us into prey for society; we have become victims to anyone’s whims just to avoid prison. Everyone is a threat. Every time we go out, we take a risk.
—Rima, 27, Kuwait City, February 10, 2011
I will not share the stories of torture here, though they comprise a rather large section of the document. They would be apt to cause triggering.