You Only Leave Once

Many Iranian couples spend thousands of dollars to determine the sex of their child before pregnancy. They try to have a son through various superstitious methods such as prayers and spells, taking herbal medicines, choosing a special diet or even scientific and laboratory methods. This is not surprising in a country where, according to the UN's report in 2021, women are still treated as second-class citizens in Iran, both by law and society. In such cultural conditions a male child with female identity is a disgrace to most families. As a transgender woman, most of them are at risk of being rejected from family and society or getting killed by their fathers if they reveal they female identities. Baran, Haleh and Maki are three transgender women who fled from Iran to Turkey to save their lives. Since Turkish law does not grant refugees the right to stay long term, they have all applied for a UN refugee resettlement program and are now waiting to be resettled to a third country - Canada, US or Australia. The process of resettling for Haleh 28 years old, has taken seven years so far; Maki 22 years old and Baran 32 years old are in their fifth year waiting. For most of the LGBTQ refugees in Turkey, which is hosting the largest number of asylum seekers in the world, the situation is the same. living in limbo and hoping for the day of having a country to build home, which can be tomorrow or many years later. Even though the Turkish law supports Transgender's rights, but the culture in many places in Turkey, especially in the small cities where the government settle the LGBTQ refugees, won't accept them. They have repeatedly experienced physical and psychological abuse in the city where they have been given refuge. They have experienced people spitting on them, being cursed at and bullied in the street and even getting violently expelled from restaurants and bars.