While Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disbelieves that there are homosexuals in Iran, it may surprise you to know that country’s religious mullahs are not only tolerant of transsexuals, but the government pays health care costs to provide the operations.

In Iran, where men and women are segregated, and homosexuality is punishable by death, the government plans to spend 6 billion rials ($647,000) this year to help pay for sex- change operations. The policies aren’t as contradictory as they seem, because in traditional societies there is more pressure to conform to standard gender roles, says Mahdis Kamkar, a Tehran psychologist who works with transsexuals.

Iran authorized such operations in 1984 under a decree issued by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The government considers transsexuals to be people who are “trapped” in a body of the wrong sex, says Mohammad Mehdi Kariminia, a cleric who wrote a thesis on the rights and duties of transsexuals.

“It’s extremely enlightened thinking, and it’s most welcome,” says Bernard Reed, who founded the Gender Identity Research and Education Society in Surrey, England, which promotes transgender issues in the U.K. “Would you see President Bush or Tony Blair making such a statement?”

via Bloomberg