Sexual discrimination in benefiting from medical treatments is a worldwide spread problem. Kidney transplantation, as the best known treatment for end stage renal disease patients, is not an exception. Regarding unique kidney donation patterns and different family styles in the Iran, studying this problem in Iran seemed justifiable and necessary. The data of age, gender, nationality, donor type and waiting time before transplantation of 1426 recipients who underwent transplantation in Mashad University of Medical Sciences from 1990 to 2003, was analysed. Recipients were categorised in three groups based on donation patterns including receiving kidney from live unrelated, live related and cadaver donors. The number of patients in Family group was 232 (67.24% male, 32.75% female). Comparison of waiting time of male and female recipients in this group did not show significant difference. In almost all sub-categories, females were less likely than males to be recipients. Furthermore, waiting time for females was longer than males when receiving kidney from sisters and children. For spousal donations, males were recipient more frequently than females while female recipients waited less than their male counterparts to receive the kidney. Overall, though males comprise the majority of recipients, the waiting time does not show significant difference between genders, so this condition seems to be a consequence of entrance of fewer females into this category. This maybe because females have less chance to find a potential donor in the family, which can be attributed to their lower socio-economic situation