Human.

‘I’d like to doze off for a little while,
And lose control of my sleep,
And someone would lay hands on me,
And I would think to him,
Have your way with me,
Do to me whatever you please.’

__ Raji Bathish, Yolla and His Sisters.

“There used to be a girl with short hair around here. She wore a butterfly necklace and called her bicycle Strawberry. She’d be constantly riding it around! Where did she go? She is deeply missed!” (Sarah Hijazi, Prison Memoirs)
On the 22nd of September 2017, Sarah Hijazi flew a rainbow flag at a Mashrou’ Leila concert in Egypt. Consequently, she was taken from her home to an unknown location where she was tied up to a chair, blindfolded, gagged, beaten, and electrically shocked. She then spent three months in prison, where police officers encouraged inmates to assault her verbally and physically. After her release, she was granted asylum in Canada, where she lived with PTSD, torn from her homeland and family until life became unbearable to her.

Sarah’s tragic life and death turned her into an icon of the LGBTQ+ community and a symbol of their struggle not only in the Arab region but also around the world. Her memory lives on through numerous works of art, media platforms, and a website dedicated to her.

Still, two years after her death, the persecution remains.
Still, in this part of the world, LGBTQ+ people live in fear. Fear of being arrested, losing their homes and jobs, of harassment and violence while homophobic attacks go unpunished by authorities. If anything, the police frequently resort to extrajudicial methods like arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment, forced anal examinations, and lack of gender recognition for transgender people.
The magnitude of family and social stigma is a tremendous challenge for LGBTQ+ people, particularly in our Arab countries. Many are haunted by the fear of being disowned by their families and community. Many live in terror of the pain the people they love could endure because of them. Unjust laws and fear of social and familial stigma leave many of them no choice but to emigrate to countries with more malleable laws and social tolerance in order to be able to live their lives and practice their activism.

Government officials, religious figures, family members, neighbors, all think they have a say in what others can or cannot feel. The Lebanese Minister of Interior’s recent decision to ban any gatherings related to the LGBTQ+ community is yet another proof of the persistence in the misuse of power. Instead of using the authority granted to him by the people to spread justice and reconciliation, he succumbed to religious pressure, emphasizing the oppressive nature of our country’s religious and ruling system. Discrimination between people based on religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation is a deadly weapon that destroys any opportunity for development. That is, perhaps, what our rulers, allowing religious figures in their lobbies, do not realize, that it is regression they are taking as their religion and imposing it on us. Humankind has been so blinded in its game of power that it built so many senseless restrictions upon itself. But the truth is, things are much simpler.
Human is human, and love is love.
Tyrants may make things more difficult, more painful. But at the end of the day, if people want to love, they will love. If they want to make love, they will make love. If they want to marry and have children, they will do so no matter how many chains are manufactured, no matter how many walls are built.
And that is why we have Pride season. It is a time where LGBTQ+ people can celebrate self-affirmation and dignity; where they can experience a sense of family and belonging; where they stand against oppressive forces trying to silence them and diminish the truth; a time where society as a whole can reflect on what it means to expand our lives and how we want to relate to one another.
It is such a long and rocky journey, and although progress can be slow and hampered by setbacks, LGBTQ+ people in Arab countries are finding ways to stand up and be counted. They are telling their stories, fighting censorship, creating movements, and finding creative ways to combat fear and discrimination. Some Arab writers have given the underground Arab LGBTQ+ communities some hope through novels like Yolla and His Sisters by Raji Bathish, Maryam, it’s me, Arwa by Arij Jammal, and A Man Made of Satin by Souhaib Ayoub. It is of utmost importance for the creative sector to fight for freedom of speech and try to brake taboos in Arab culture by addressing the issue of gender and sexuality. In fact, Arab filmmakers have been shedding light on the subject for a long time, despite facing persecution. Egyptian directors Salah Abou Seif and Youssef Shahine have faced criticism because of films like The Malatily Bathhouse (1973) and Cairo Station (1958). Many young filmmakers are still facing the same obstacles but keeping the torch alive.
Reading a novel, watching a film, or interacting with any work of art that carries a familiar story can be life-altering to an LGBTQ+ person. It is validating to finally come across a story that resembles you. A character, at last, with which you can identify. Something, at last, that sparks the epiphany of realizing that perhaps, after all, you are not alone. Perhaps, after all, you are not the monster they want you to be. Perhaps, after all, you are a human being.
So in this month of pride, chin up! Cheer up! Stand up and speak up!

And let us take a moment and pay tribute to those who never compromised their truth even when they knew it could cost them their lives;
To the mother and the father who are defying everyone and everything they have ever known only out of love;
To those still tied up in a thousand chains. That is not the end.
To the children. The girls, the boys, and all those in between.
To love, to courage, to freedom;
And to the hope that, one day, justice will prevail.