[1] Designated male at birth, she was later instrumental in obtaining a letter which acted as a fatwa enabling sex reassignment surgery to exist as part of a legal framework.
[1][2][3][4] Molkara became the first transgender person in Iran to legally undergo sex reassignment surgery with the permission of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
[6] Molkara started to write letters to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile in Iraq, asking for religious advice about being assigned the wrong gender at birth.
[7] After this, she met with Farah Pahlavi, who gave her support towards Molkara and other transgender individuals wanting sex reassignment surgery.
[6] She was fired from her job at the Iranian National Radio and Television, forced to wear masculine clothing, injected with male hormones against her will, and detained in a psychiatric institution.
[3] Having heard her story, Ahmad Khomeini was touched and took Molkara to speak to his father, where he asked three of his doctors about the surgery in an attempt to make a well-informed decision.
[7] Molkara lobbied for the according medical knowledge and procedures to be implemented in Iran, and worked on helping other transgender people have access to surgeries.
[4] In 2007, she founded and subsequently ran the Iranian Society to Support Individuals with Gender Identity Disorder (ISIGID, انجمن; Persian: حمایت از بیماران مبتلا به اختلالات هویت جنسی ایران), the first state-approved organization for transgender rights in Iran.