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I have a situation that I am fearful and ashamed to talk about, but I fear the torment of the hellfire and want to know the ruling on it.
In the past, I was a mushrik (polytheist) and was deceived by the Shaytaan so that, while I was born female, I acted in a very masculine way and had masculine desires and lifestyle. Because of this, I thought that it would be better for me to go through a sex change operation and take hormones, etc. to become a man, and these procedures are all irreversible. I lived comfortably as a man for a long time and then last week, Alhamdulillah, I found Islam and became guided to the straight path.
Now that I am Muslim, I really regret my former actions and every day I feel extremely ashamed about what I have done before my lord, and I am afraid to go to any of the masaajid around my area because I dont know what I should do concerning this situation. I was not born a man so I feel if I went for Jumuah etc. with the men, I would be guilty of lying, but outwardly I appear entirely like a male, so there is no way to be among the sisters either.
I feel like there is no hope for me and that even if I repent to Allah, because of the severity of my sin I will still be doomed to the hell. What can I do? Would it be better to just stay away from the masaajid so as not to cause a fitnah for the other Muslims? Insha Allah, even if I am alone I will hopefully be able to study from the works of the scholars as books and lectures are easily found nowadays.
Praise be to Allah.
Firstly:
We praise Allah, may He be exalted, for having guided you to Islam. This is the greatest blessing that Allah can bestow upon a person, because through it one can attain true happiness and eternal bliss and everlasting delight in eternal Paradise.
We give you the glad tidings that Allah accepts repentance because, by His mercy, Allah makes Islam erase whatever sins came before it, no matter how great, serious and abhorrent they were. At the very moment when you uttered the Shahaadatayn and entered Islam, Allah forgave all your previous sins, including the sex change that you underwent.
You have turned over a new leaf and started a clean, fresh page with Allah, on which there are no sins, so keep it clean and do not spoil it with sins.
Ignore the whispers of the Shaytaan (Satan) that he is trying to put in your mind, because he wants to make you despair of the mercy of Allah and think that you are doomed to Hell. But by becoming Muslim, you have been forgiven all your previous sins.
Secondly:
Allah created you female, and you have to accept what Allah decreed for you and chose for you. It is not the issue of whether a person is a man or woman; rather it is the issue of whether he or she will be obedient to Allah and attain the pleasure of Allah, whether the person is male or female.
So you have to go back to the way you were before.
We asked a doctor and he told us that it is easy, in sha Allah. You can go back to the specialists in this field and do what they advise.
If the uterus has been surgically removed, that cannot be fixed, but there is no sin on you for that because Islam – as stated above – erases whatever came before it of sins. The same is also true of repentance: it erases sins. You have become Muslim and you have repented and regretted what you did; these are two things, each of which on its own is sufficient to erase previous sins.
Thirdly:
With regard to your mixing with men and attending prayers in congregation and Jumu‘ah prayer with them, that is not permissible because you are not a man. You have to conduct yourself on the basis that you are female and follow the rulings that Allah has prescribed for females.
With regard to mixing with women, there is nothing wrong with that because you are in fact female.
But if this mixing is going to cause you considerable embarrassment and women will not understand your situation because your outward appearance is masculine, then you can delay that until you change your outward appearance to feminine. You have to hasten to go to the doctor and start to correct the previous mistakes. Until that is done – and we hope that it will be soon – you can focus on learning about Islam through books and articles, and listening to lectures.
We ask Allah, may He be exalted, to guide you to the truth and make you steadfast in adhering to it; may He open your heart and complete His blessings upon you and grant you peace of mind and happiness in this world and in the Hereafter.
And Allah knows best.