Originally a comment by Papito on The liberal capitulators.

Apropos of strange bedfellows…

Now, faced with an economy crippled by war and sanctions, the Islamic republic is promoting its expertise to a global audience, hoping to attract transgender foreigners with the promise of inexpensive surgeries packaged with luxury hotel stays and sightseeing tours.

Desperate for foreign investment, Iran’s theocratic government has set a goal of generating more than $7 billion from medical tourism annually, according to Iranian state news media, about seven times as much as it earned last year. That objective has resulted in the proliferation of medical tourism companies, marketing not just nose jobs and hair transplants, but vaginoplasties, mastectomies and penis constructions through glossy English-language websites.

The article is full of the sort of pandering we’re used to – calling men “she” and women “he” if they want that, and bemoaning the terrible suffering of the “non-binary.” But the reality peeks through: Westerners are going on medical tourist junkets to Iran to get operations on their sexual organs because Iranian surgeons do this more than anybody, and do it for cheap. They’ve been practicing on all the gay people in Iran for decades.

I wonder what’s next for Iran. Perhaps they can start doing implants. They could match the organs they forcibly remove from the nation’s gays to Western sex surgery tourists and do simultaneous surgeries to maximize success. A unconscious gay tied to bed one, behind a curtain, and a self-hating Western lesbian getting the medical bargain of her life in bed two. Everybody wins, the trans and the theocrats. Well, except the gays. they don’t win.

Of course, the trans recipients would feel sad about the butchered gays for a couple days, but on the other hand, they’d be happy too.

Eric, a 45-year-old trans man living in Canada who requested anonymity to protect himself and his family from reprisals, said he had sought treatment in Iran because it was cheap. But he acknowledged the tension in seeking treatment in a place where others have it forced on them.

“I have heard a lot, especially among trans women, that because they are gay, and they cannot be gay in Iran, they try to do the surgery,” said Eric. “I’m really sad that gays and lesbians are not recognized in Iran, but on the other hand I’m happy for trans people because they can do what they’re willing to do.”