In 1987, Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini passed a fatwa allowing sex-change operations as a cure for "diagnosed transsexuals".

[4] Be Like Others shows the experiences of male and female patients at Dr. Bahram Mir-Jalali's Mirdamad Surgical Centre, a sex-reassignment clinic in Tehran.

He decides to go ahead with the surgery despite death threats from his father and finds support from Vida, a post-operative transsexual he meets at the clinic.

[8] She contacted a British journalist who had written on the subject and he gave her telephone numbers for Dr. Bahram Mir-Jalali and the Muslim cleric featured in the film.

[9] To find subjects, she visited the predominant sex-reassignment clinic in Iran, and spent time in the waiting-room talking to patients and their families.

[13] Writing for Variety, Robert Koehler called Be Like Others "a powerful window into a once-hidden side of the country" and "a model of non-dogmatic filmmaking on a highly charged topic.