Why My Sabbatical Needed to Take Me to Iran

Dena Rod’s sabbatical ended up taking them all over the world. (Dena Rod)

BY DENA ROD

Welcome to The Transgender Sabbatical Blues, an ongoing series exploring Dena Rod’s experience as a transgender, non-binary, Iranian American Bay Area local who took a five-week sabbatical all over the Northern Hemisphere.

What the fuck is a sabbatical? I remember first hearing the word come out of Quinn’s mouth. You know, Daria’s little sister from MTV’s Daria, who was taking a sabbatical from the fashion club and then everyone else in the fashion club decided to take a sabbatical and then the fashion club dissolved, but they all still were essentially in the fashion club because what was the fashion club, really? A time for Sandy and Quinn to have petty power plays over one another via teen mean girl outfit policing while Stacy and Tiffany clung onto their coattails. 

Anyway, I digress. A sabbatical! Somehow I earned one through five years of the purgatory of selling my labor to a healthcare tech company that ended up being acquired by another tech behemoth. Once you hit “five years of service,” like this was some sort of consensual BDSM authority transfer relationship rather than hourly waged labor, you got four weeks paid sabbatical for “continuing enrichment and personal development.” See, in Denmark, you get six weeks of PTO right when you’re hired as standard. But in America, you’ll get four weeks to make sure you “enrich” yourself for your employer after five years of working at the same place. 

But hey, count your blessings. Some jobs don’t even give you a sabbatical! Or make you work more than 20 years to earn one.  

What to do with mine was so clear to me: I had to go to Iran. After a lifetime of my parents always advising me I should wait until my thirties to sojourn to the motherland (something I’ve explored before), here was the perfect opportunity. What could possibly go wrong with planning this type of adventure? 

Sure, as a U.S. citizen, the Department of Homeland Security ranked the Islamic Republic of Iran as a Level 4. That means the United States cannot help extradite you back to their soil if anything happened to me. Sure, I would need to adhere to a rigorously vetted itinerary where a representative of the Islamic Republic Department of Tourism would check up on me and my tour guide to make sure we were where we said we would be. And, sure, I would need to stay on the beaten path, wear a veil, and agree to not visit my extended family in order to “play American tourist.” But there were dozens of Americans online who said that the risk of visiting Iran was overstated. Hell, even Anthony Bourdain did a Parts Unknown episode in Tehran. Just because it had more hurdles than the typical vacation destination, didn’t mean that it would be impossible. Right?

It just meant it would literally be a ride or die kind of sabbatical. There was a possibility I would not come back from this trip. I would need a will, designate any beneficiaries, make sure that my wife had access to my socials and email accounts in case the worst happened. Meaning being detained, preventing me from my return flight to the U.S.. 

It wasn’t the getting there that felt like a question in my mind: It was the departure. Would I be allowed to board my plane? Or would my passport be seized at immigration because someone was in a bad mood that day? All my cousins assured me the fear and harm was overblown, that the Iranian immigration and security officers who they dealt with on their visits to Iran were playing pasur, drinking tea, and eating cookies. Apparently, they barely looked at their documents and waved them through. 

I would still do it. Determined and foolhardy as I felt, I would go through the six month visa approval process. Because this was something I always wanted to do, had dreamed of literally my entire life, and nothing would stop me. Certainly not fear. I couldn’t let something as trifling as the fear of death stop me from seeing the mountain I’m named after. 

This was September 2022. I started messaging tour guides after scouring the Internet for the best ones who spoke English, who confidently asserted on their websites that they had procured tourist visas for American citizens. My best friend Becky, a world traveler extraordinaire who has filled up two passports and traveled over multiple continents, advised me on what to expect from this process. 

“I’m scared for you,” she texted me. “Iran is a Level 4, what the Ukraine is right now. I’ve never traveled to a Level 4 country.”

“I know but it’s something I have to at least try to do,” I responded. “Otherwise, I’ll always be dreaming.” 

To be continued next week!

Dena Rod is a lifetime Bay Area local, non-binary poet, and essayist currently working on their first novel. Connect with Dena at their website, denarod.com