Transgender question

Someone asked this question on a forum and this post includes the response I gave. Please note I am not a scholar so this is an answer to the question- it is not a "fatwa". I wrote my response as a lay Muslim using Islamic references from the Quran as a yardstick instead of society's ever changing inconsistent and/or hypocritical values that the questioner was hoping for.


Question: I know of this one transgender man (meaning he was originally female and became male) got kicked out of the local mosque. He prayed with the men, and he looked very much like any of the other men there, but he made the mistake of telling the imam he was trans, and the imam basically said either he dressed as a woman and wore hijab and prayed with the women, or he couldn't come back. Now what's right about that? Doesn't he have as much right to pray with the men as anyone else? I mean, for all intents and purposes, he is a man. And now, what should he do since he can't go back to being female (and doesn't want to anyway) about praying at the mosque, where he was basically discriminated against? Please let me know what you think this guy should do. Thanks all!

Answer: On the one hand you say (in subsequent posts that) this individual has a mental illness called Gender Identity Disorder, on the other you call the person "he". So do you think the person is a delusional female trying to impersonate a man by injecting hormones and playing dress up? Or do you want us all to ignore the commands of Allah (swt) regarding separating men and women during prayers (and how Allah created and defined us as male and female) and contribute to the problem by actively encouraging the delusion ourselves? Those are the options.

There's so much more I can say about this. What does Allah (swt) tell us in the Quran? That Allah (swt) loves those who are repentant and those who are thankful for what He gives them. What does the Quran say that Allah (swt) hates? It tells us that the people who are wrong are those who believe in falsehood, those who are arrogant and those who are ungrateful of the favours Allah has given them. So isn't it wrong to be ungrateful for being born with the skin colour Allah gave us? Isn't it wrong to be ungrateful for growing up to be shorter than the height we want to be? Isn't it ingratitude to be blessed with a fully functioning normal nose to breathe with and yet wish to change the way Allah shaped it via plastic surgery? If Allah (swt) meant for her to be a man, He would've created her as a male. Yet she is so ungrateful for the way Allah (swt) created her, that she attempts to change the creation of Allah (swt) into the opposite identity of the one He gave her- as if to pretend that Allah made a mistake nauzobillah and she knows better. What could be more arrogant than persisting in living out her fantasy and insisting that the rest of the local Muslim community comply with what she wants rather than following Allah's (swt) commands inside a masjid?

Disdaining ungratefully Our gifts and giving themselves up to (worldly) enjoyment! But soon will they know (TMQ 29 v66)

And Allah has made for you from yourselves mates and has made for you from your mates sons and daughters and grandchildren and provided for you sustenance of the best: will they then believe in vain things and be ungrateful for Allah's favours? (TMQ 16:72)

Truly man is, to his Lord, ungrateful (TMQ 100:06)

We are told time and time again that when we live with a roof over our heads with our families and have food to eat then we should remember this as Allah's favour upon us and when we go through hardships in the dunya then we should show sabr and have the resilience to patiently persevere through it and we'd be rebuked for using our hardships as an excuse for expressing ingratitude to Allah. Our Prophets (as) Yaqub (Jacob) and Ayub (Job) had far greater reason to feel let down than any of us. Yaqub was separated from his most beloved son Yusuf (Joseph) and told he was dead which caused him to be so grief stricken that he became blind and yet he only expressed his sorrow to Allah (swt) knowing that Allah has the right to give and take and never using his grief as an excuse to turn away from the right path. Ayub (as) was blighted by a terrible illness that lasted for several years, his children died, his community rejected him and his wife left him to fend for himself, yet in spite of his difficulties, his imaan never wavered; he never used the way Allah (swt) made him as an excuse to turn away from the straight path or pretend that he was "trans-healthy" when he was sick or "trans-female" when he's male.

O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed Allah is Knowing and Acquainted (TMQ 49:13)

So it is Allah who created the male and female. Who does she think she is that she can deny such a thing? Indeed Allah is Knowing, so does she as a Muslim think Allah knows better as to which is which or that she knows better?