News broke last week that 26-year-old Sogand Pakdel, a trans woman living in Iran, was murdered by members of her family as part of an 'honour killing' in June.
According to information released by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Sogand chose to attend the wedding of her cousin in Kavar, part of the Fars Province in Iran, despite being told not to by family who did not respect her identity. Upon arriving at the event she was threatened by an uncle, who produced a gun and fired a shot into the air, before he turned the weapon on her, killing her with a bullet to the head.
Prior to her murder, Sogand had been living in in a hostel in Shiraz, alongside other trans people, after receiving abuse and ostracization from her family. It has been reported that Sogand received beatings and assaults from family members, as well as abductions, and multiple threats of death. According to one source 'Male relatives would repeatedly take her out to the desert and beat her. The last time this happened, she recorded a video and shared it, saying ‘Let us live.’'
The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, an independent organisation who monitor human rights violations in Kurdistan and Iran, spoke about Sogand, having talked to people close to her. They said that she was 'never silent' on issues of trans liberation and equality both in her life and on social media. A friend of her told them that 'She was always defiant, and she paid for it with her life.'
Hengaw also said that an ongoing, silent massacre of queer people is currently taking place across Iran, and that Sogand is just the latest in a long line of victims. Currently in Iran trans people, despite official claims of being recognised and respected, suffer persecution under the state's laws, binary gender definitions, and pathologizing medical practices; same-sex relationships are also punishable by flogging, and even death, in Iran.
Based on current law in Iran, transgender people are only granted legal recognition if they undergo coercive treatments that violate bodily autonomy. Trans people are forced to undergo virginity tests, psychological testing, chromosome testing, and physical examinations before they're able to receive treatment. They must also have parental permission, even as adults, and must appeal to family courts. Because of Iran's strict gender binary, trans people are deemed as 'curable' and must undergo gender reassignment procedures to be granted rights.
This all exists alongside state propaganda that enforces strict cis-heteronormative ideologies, and the promotion of honour killings of those who violate these 'norms'. In many ways the Iranian state encourages family of transgender people to enact violence for them, which results in brutalisation and murder, as seen with Sogand.
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