in reply to Scott Lucas

@alx

Could you please clarify:

Authorities referring to it as “their section" implies these are individuals who are recognised by the state as transgender. Recognition in Iran requires gender-affirming surgery, of which there have been order-of-magnitude a thousand in the country. But then 100 transgender inmates out of that number, in a single prison, when being ‘officially' transgender is not by and of itself a reason for a prison term, seems like an extreme proportion.

Are these individuals who were in prison on account of being recognised (by the state) as being transgender, but being so 'illegally' because they have not had/consented to/... surgery? I.e., 'recognised unrecognised transgender’ (from the perspective of the Iranian authorities)?