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Leaders of a Tempe mosque have decided that if congregant Sumayyah Dawud wants to continue attending prayers and other community functions at the Islamic Community Center, she must either dress and pray as a man or provide medical documentation that she is anatomically female.
Though Dawud was born male, she has been legally female since 2011 — her Arizona driver’s license and U.S. passport list her as such. She converted to Islam in 2013 and, until recently, says no one has raised any questions about her identity.
But earlier this summer, a handful of her fellow community members went to the ICC board of directors with concerns that she was not actually female and said having her pray with them in the women’s section made them uncomfortable.
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In the past month, Dawud has become the center of what she calls an inappropriate investigation into her personal history and has been thrust into what might just be one of the next frontiers for the Muslim community.
One of the leaders “told me I was not allowed to use the women’s areas because ‘I had male biology,’” Dawud says. “I asked where he got that from, and he told me that I was the one who said that at the meeting with [Fayad] previously. I explained that I never said such a thing. He also said I had agreed from the prior meeting to stay out of the women’s section, which was also untrue.”
Read full, original post: Transgender woman barred from Tempe mosque unless she dresses as a man or can “prove” she’s a woman
