Mehran
Mehran was born as Mahnoush, a girl. Her mother decided to raise her as a bacha posh: a girl posing as a boy, giving a boy’s name, and answering only to Mehran, not her birth name. This unusual decision is deemed necessary in some families when the marital union fails to produce a son, especially when it has been successful in producing more than one daughter. The reasoning—whether actually reasonable or not—behind this decision has to do entirely with perception. That perception is that a family without a male offspring is somehow weaker of subject to greater vulnerability. And when Mahnoush begins reaching puberty? Simple: she changes back into a girl.
Azita
Azita is Mehran’s mother. She was also raised as a bacha posh. She grew up to become a female member of the new Afghanistan parliament created in the wake of the American invasion following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The defeat of the Taliban has allowed her to enjoy four years as a representative of the most rural populace of her home. So beloved is she by her constituents that she earns the nicknamed “Lioness of Badghis.” The mother of four daughters, it is her youngest that she chooses to raise as a bacha posh.
Dr. Fareiba
Dr. Fareiba has also earned herself a nickname: “the Son Maker.” She is herself lucky enough to have produced three sons, but enjoys a fine reputation for understanding the intricacies involves among those not so fortunate. She also has a daughter and fully understands the system which mandates that she will eventually be sent off into a marriage in which she becomes utterly submissive to the rule of her husband. Her “ability” to make sons revolves around a system based on a rigid dietary regimen, some non-scientifically based potions, and advice on using certain sexual positions invested with claims to manipulate the sex of the offspring resulting from the encounter.
Niima
Niima is a ten-year-old girl who lives under the bacha posh name Abdul Mateen. She is a good, but silent worker in a shop responsible for climbing to top shelves to retrieve items. For her labor, she brings home about $1.30 a day in income upon which her mother and seven sisters rely simply to help cover necessities. It is difficult pulling off the deception of being Abdul, however, because though she sports a boy’s haircut, frame, and strength, her voice is all girl. Adding to the problem is that Niima would prefer to be all girl, all the time.
Shukria
As Azita points out, once puberty hits, most bacha posh boys simply transform back into girls full time. Shukria is an example that this is not always the case. She is told horror stories about what happens to women on their wedding night and is almost driven to edge of anxiety by the nightmare of what to expect. Once the event come and goes, however, her anxiety revolves around something entirely different: the feeling that she should have been the one with the penis. For Shukria had actually continued living as a boy into young adulthood, faking an existence to much of the outside world that she was a man right up to month before that wedding night finally arrived.
