Feasibility Study of Legislative Support of Transgender Victims in Hate Crimes with an Approach based on Imam Khomeini’s Views

Abstract

Hate crime is a term attributed to the crimes resulting from prejudice or hatred on the basis of qualities (under support) such as race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. A fault with Iran’s penal code is this that it lacks a specified legislative criminal policy for the transgender individuals. In this paper, the principle question is whether criminal acts against transgender people can be identified as a certain type of hate crime in current penal system or not. If yes, how it can be justified based on Imam Khomeini’s thoughts? We have tried to analyze the issue with a descriptive-analytical method with an approach based on Imam Khomeini’s views. In this connection, Imam Khomeini’s practical conduct is not zero tolerance toward transgender people; rather his approach, in word and action, entails maximum support of the transgender people and supporting any move to remove legal obstacles before them. Such supportive approach can be extended from jurisprudential-legal prescription for gender transitioning in transgender people to supporting them in post-victimization period. This is because transgender people are counted among potential victims, or in more precise term, “hidden victims”. As a result, a sort of segregated criminal policy, including aggravating criminal support (criminal support along with aggravating circumstances) can be adopted toward these victims.

Keywords

• hate crimes
• transgender victim
• prejudice
• imam khomeini