Saman Arastoo ( fa, سامان ارسطو; born Farzaneh Arastoo () on 5 June 1967 in
Shahrud, Iran
Shahrood ( fa, شاهرود, also Romanized as Shâhrūd, and Shahroud; also known as Shârūd) is a city and capital of Shahrood County, Semnan Province, Iran.
Situated about an altitude of 1345 m, it is located at latitude 36°25'N, long ...
) is an Iranian actor and director. He starred in the 2003 drama
''Abadan'' prior to
gender transition
Gender transition is the process of changing one's gender presentation or sex characteristics to accord with one's internal sense of gender identity – the idea of what it means to be a man or a woman,Brown, M. L. & Rounsley, C. A. (1996) ''True ...
, and directs plays regarding the acceptance of
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
people in Iranian society.
His play ''Khodkar-é-Bikar'' (Useless Pen) features transgender characters played by transgender actors.
Personal life
Arastoo describes his first marriage in 1991 as a "forced marriage" for which the divorce lasted one and a half years. He underwent
sex reassignment surgeries at age 42 in 2008. He married again in 2015.
Following wide publicity around his gender transition, Arastoo has been a public figure for the
Iranian transgender community, including holding drama therapy workshops such as "Self Cognition".
Career
He founded the
Avaye Divanegan Theatre Group in 1983.
Filmography
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Arastoo, Saman
1967 births
Living people
People from Shahrud, Iran
21st-century Iranian actors
Transgender male actors
Iranian LGBT artists