Egyptian youth and homophobic dilemma

AP Photo/Matt Slocum

Ever since the legislation of gay marriage in the US, the LGBT phenomena took over the world, and naturally it wouldn’t stay away from one of the most taboos-filled countries, Egypt.

Egypt has dealt with its share of homosexuality and homophobia and LGBT issues over the years, and it always ended badly, with people either immigrating or getting enough hate forcing them to miraculously change their minds. Homosexuality is no stranger to the Egyptian society, but whenever it was mentioned, it was always hushed.

The fiasco that came along one of Egypt’s most popular novels “Yacoubian Building” by Alaa Al-Aswany is one of the proofs. Two of the novels characters are homosexuals, and the rage the book was met with, and its movie afterwards, because of these two characters and their relationship was enough evident.

That book wasn’t the perfect example of how homosexual relations go about, and it didn’t discuss LGBT deeply, but afterwards the Egyptian society began shamming anyone openly discussing LGBT and their rights. In the eyes of Egyptians, or most of them anyway, homosexuals and transgender have no rights.

and from one of the most conservative countries and considered one of the biggest Islamic countries, comes “M” a 20 years old guy and “R” a 22 years old girl, big supporters of human rights, but the one thing they haven’t shared about themselves, is that they don’t just support LGBT rights, but that they’re gay themselves.

Being from Egypt, it’s hard to live freely; even if you’re a heterosexual person trying to enjoy a night out, you’ll find a lot of obstacles. But for homosexuals, Egypt is definitely one of the last places they’d like to live in. Egypt isn’t a good home to people with different ideas, where gay people are often sent to prison or referred to as people with “mental issues”.

They talk of their experience of coming out, “M” says that he was 16, when he finally accepted himself as gay, and that’s also when he came out. He’s currently happy in a relationship and his dream is to have a family of his own in the future. And “R” says that she came out about a year ago to some of her friends and only came out to herself a few months before that. She confesses always brushing off whatever she was feeling (about women) and was afraid of addressing it. Now, she views relationships and having a family of her own in a new light.

“M” starts his story with saying that he only confessed to his friends, whom didn’t take it really well. They didn’t accept it at first, some of them wanted to listen more and the discussion led to the conclusion that they can live with the fact that there are so many people who are gay but they can’t be friends with them, while the rest did not want to hear anything at all and kept mocking the whole idea. Most of them only think of the sexual aspect of homosexuality.

And “R” stats the same that she only came out to some of her friends, being worried that people wouldn’t take her seriously and some haven’t, some think it’s a “persona” she’s trying on and say things like “all 20 something girls like girls” as if it’s a phase, or something college aged girls do for attention. “But some were unbelievably understanding and supportive and did not make me feel the way I feared I would when people knew,” she says.

According to them there are many misconceptions that they wish people would know the truth of, in “M”s case he needs them to know they’re not drooling over men 24/7, and that they’re normal people you meet in your daily life. While “R” says that people should stop referring to it as if it’s some sort of illness, they think just because it’s not common that it’s unnatural.

And of course this kind of mentality that “M” was met with stopped him from confessing to his family, he recalls other friends who came out to their families before and all of them had horrible experience with it. And it’s the same with “R”, she says, “It’s not something I’m keen on sharing with them, they’ve yet to accept me as agnostic, so queer would just add another level of distance.”

For “M” the LGBT topic never left his mind, and he mainly discusses it on Facebook, when something big related happens like the legislation of gay marriage by the Supreme Court in USA. He says that even though he can’t really benefit from it living in Egypt, he was so happy on that day. But when he gets asked by family members or university colleagues or even his neighbors if he was gay, he’d deny it and tell them that he only supports their rights.

In “R” case, she managed to live abroad as she’s studying in the US, and she believes that living abroad made it a lot easier for her to come out, as it’s easier for her to shut out all the negative comments that try to get her, especially from Egyptians back at her home. She comments on other struggles she faced saying, “I came out as a non-believer about 5 years ago in Egypt and that turned my life upside down.”

Egypt being not the suitable environment for coming out, “M” confesses that he’ll come out as a gay person if he had the chance to live abroad and this idea keeps motivating him to immigrate to somewhere else.

The whole idea of famous people discussing LGBT fairly on social media might influence the degree of acceptance among Egyptians, but this will happen very slowly and it will take so much time to happen.

After the experience with coming out, “M” didn’t try to make any new friends from university or clubs, and he says “My friends now are either homosexuals or heterosexual that I knew in advance who are open-minded enough to accept me as whom I am.”

When asked about the homophobic issue, they both agreed that people mainly refuse to understand or think, and most of them were taught the same set of thoughts, values, and beliefs as they grew, mostly from people they love like their own family or teachers or even their religious leaders.

But in Egypt, “M” thinks it’s mostly about the whole “be a man!” mindset. As most of them do accept lesbians but wouldn’t accept gay men, it’s a part of the whole stereotype that our society is made and ruled by men. They start panicking mainly when they’re faced with different ideas that might shake their own beliefs.

Life for them was and is still full of challenges, in the past the biggest challenge for “M” was facing his friends, but when he thinks of the future all he hopes for is to survive his relationship and life in Egypt till he manages to leave.

“M” says, “It’s a big mistake to come out here in Egypt, but until you manage to escape, you have to feel loved and accepted, in order not to die depressed. Make sure you’re surrounded with the right people and make your secret small society that loves you as who you are.”

While “R” sums it up beautifully, “Coming out to your friends in NYC, you face less than a fraction of the external challenges than say coming out in Arkansas. But there are so many challenges even if they’re mostly internal. You go out with this incredible person and you have these moments of pure connection, of genuine happiness, and your mind shuts down all the pesky little questions that creep up on you when you go home, things like, if my relationship with her progresses will this be what obliterates the tiny shred of communication I still have with my family? I’ve dealt with similar struggles when I came out agnostic. Your whole life, you’re walking down this path that is set for you, and suddenly you start noticing things until you get to a point where you realize, this path…is not for you, and the first instinct is that feeling of, well what do I do? Where do I go? I need to pave a new path but how do I do that? The unknown is always scary and navigating through it can be hard at times, but it can also be exhilarating, and what really comforts me through this, is the knowledge that I am sticking to my principle of honesty and discovery regardless of the challenges they bring.”