Bahrain: Court rules former woman now male

MANAMA - Once a woman, a Bahraini man has won his fight to be legally recognised as male and says that by being the first to publicly announce his transformation he has softened Arab society's rigid views on gender.

Formerly known as Zaineb, 34-year-old Hussein Rabei was the first Bahraini to go public with plans to change his sex, triggering condemnation from many Arabs who considered the procedure forbidden by Islam.

But after a flood of media reports attitudes have changed, said Rabei, and a court in the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain this week ruled that he would be legally considered male.

"I am really excited and thankful for the ruling," Rabei told Reuters on Thursday.

"Peoples' attitudes have really changed, they have begun to understand after all the media coverage and the interviews. Society has changed a lot," he said.

Rabei was raised a girl after being born with genitalia that more closely resembled a vagina than a penis. Arab culture and its strict views on gender meant doctors ignored growing signs that Rabei may in fact be male, he said.

His is one of a range of relatively rare conditions in which there is a mismatch between the body's sexual genetic code and its physical make up. Instead of having two X chromosomes -- the female pattern -- he has an XY or male configuration.

After failing to consummate "her" marriage to a man, doctors advised pills to induce menstruation and surgery to open the hymen, disregarding Rabei's concerns that he may be male.

He turned to a foreign clinic, which found he was genetically male and lacked a female reproductive system.

Rabei's lawyer Fouzia Janahi said she was criticised for helping people to change their sex, but media reports had since prompted hundreds of Arabs to seek her help.

Rabei is the second Bahraini for whom Janahi has helped obtain a sex change ruling. Her first client remained anonymous.

Most Muslim scholars say changing one's sex is forbidden unless it is related to an intersex condition such as Rabei's.

-- Reuters