BLOOMBERG: To the Egyptian government, to her doctors, and especially to herself, Sally Mursi is a woman. To al-Azhar University, the most prestigious Islamic school in Egypt and the Middle East, she’s a man.
Twenty-one years ago, Mursi, 43, went through a sex-change operation as she was about to enter her fourth year at al-Azhar’s medical school, where classes are segregated by gender under Muslim traditions of piety. Al-Azhar officials expelled her, saying she couldn’t go to the men’s classes because she was impersonating a woman -- or to the women’s classes because she was actually a man.
Since then, al-Azhar has refused to abide by repeated court orders to readmit Mursi, filing appeals. The contest has become a battle between civil law and religious fiat, reflecting conflicting attitudes about sexuality in an increasingly pious country.
For Mursi, the struggle is a singular and lonely quest for self-worth as she challenges a major Islamic institution and copes with public curiosity.
“Mursi is suffering from being the first Egyptian transsexual to go public, combined with the fact that Egypt has not worked out the relation between state and religion,” said Hossam Baghat, 29, legal officer for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent civil-rights organization.
Two years ago, Ali Gomaa, al-Azhar’s top religious official, issued a decree describing Mursi as corrupt and unfit “to live among men or women.” The edict hit all the newspapers, with photos of Mursi as a belly dancer -- a job she took to make money after her expulsion. >>> By Daniel Williams | Monday, March 17, 2009
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