Inside the second edition of "Amroos" we discuss the internal stigmatization inside the LGBTQI+ community as an initiative for self-criticism of the community we belong to, as this community should act as the space where the LGBTQI+ individuals can feel accepted, safe and stable emotionally and psychologically. We wish you enjoy the 2nd edition of Amroos
To start this piece we have to define the word stigma at the beginning -according to Cambridge dictionary- :” a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something” , this something could be another person life style , behavior , social event , or even racial group or it could be internal stigma that mean stigmatize your own behavior or your own life style
The stigma could be implemented in several levels in a one community based at the categorizing at certain social circle and also the power relation between those categories.
this article we will talk about stigma and sexual minorities in the society of Sudanese citizens, from the last line you can detect that stigma will be present and not only stigma and shame, but also violence and sometimes criminal acts toward this category, however this article is about inner circles stigma so I will stick with that for now.
There is many aspects could affect the situation , religion , social class , economic class , ethnical background and the most affective factor it would be (masculinity) , for example: As gay man living in Sudan, if your physical appearance was masculine enough
according to “community standards” you will not suffer as much as a gay man who is a little bit more femme in apparel and that’s apply to the whole community that’s include the circles the LGBTIAQ+ community too, this circle also can be harsh at blaming you for being who you are or feeling to be, you can hear an advice from your other homosexual friend telling you to appear more a masculine to create a save space for – both of you - and the other factors could interact too with the masculinity and apparel aspect creating exceptions, for example if you are from a certain family with a bigger name and more power socially you will be a harder target for the others to attack, people will hastate to create a conflict with you , also if you are a public figure – an artist –singer – actor actress – the pressure could be -less or more -depending on popularity among the society.
In the other hand the economic situation could change a lot, with money you can create a space for you to be who you are it could be a small space for a limited period of time but also it could be a relief, you can rent a house or have your own parties, travel, or whatever that could give you the freedom to be who you are as a Sudanese queer.
Double life is a must in a country the homosexuality penalty on it could be death sentence, and this double life could destroy more than it could build , the smaller circle that contain you and your self, the person that appeared to people and the person that lives in you that
double character could mess your brain up , the levels of depression among queers on Sudan are really high and I don’t have statistics of course in closed society like that you cannot get an accurate results and it’s almost impossible to get people to talk, but from a personal observation the inner stigma is scary.
At the last paragraphs I made an examples of homosexual male which is only one side of the whole LGBTIAQ+ family if we just imagine how others situation could be, an intersex female and all the transition process and the psychological challenges, the trans phobia inside the LGBT community is a whole another story, the medical care that this person will need the financial aid the stigma everywhere, the religion ,society , family rejection, the sharia law-all of the above can create a burden of the transsexual person during the transition and that inner stigma that could be relate with all what I mentioned before , in some cases that would drive the person to quiet.
Let’s take another letter from the LGBTQIA+, the letter, L , how do you think a lesbian girl could survive at a community that want every girl to get married before the age of 30, in this case she have two options, option one follow t social pattern get marry ,have kids ,and live the self-shaming life, option two be the rebel and refuse the social roles and live as independent women with a secret other life and also with self-shaming, stigma everywhere
Some of you readers could consider this as dark hopeless article , but to make a situation better we have to see all the defects , that’s how social change work , open the eyes of the community and let them see the problem
detect what we already have , and try to work on it with the available resources.
What we can do? Networking and be here for each other work in a grass root level , spread the word ,brain storm , set action plans and try to work to let other generation get a better experience.
Never give up in social change.
"I came out of the room and I did not hear or see anything ... everything looked foggy, I am accompanied by the consultant who came back from the room and began to reassure me saying that this was not the end of the world for me. As I left the building, I could not move my body. I sat on the pavement crying like a child whose mother lost him on a busy day in the market. I do not know how much time has while I'm in this position. I went back home and thoughts came back rushing, what if my mother found out? What if my friends did? What if people knew? I thought about ending my life for fear of people knowing what happened to me. I recalled the fate of someone who was friend of a friend, when people knew about his affliction, he was socially shunned and he was dismissed from his job. His social life came to a complete halt and he started a struggle with depression he would never win until he decided to end his life, but I have decided to end my life now so as to shorten all this suffering, exactly like the suffering endured by countless other people before me "
"I still remember his words to me while we were in the waiting room after getting tested and waiting for the result. He told me that regardless of the outcome, this would be our
last interaction and he didn’t want to see me again. He forgot our four-year relationship. I only learned that I got infected two days ago, he was the first person because I wanted to make sure he is alright. I did not care about my ordeal, I was more interested in his. His results came negative and he breathed a sigh of relief. We went out of the clinic and went our separate ways. He gave up on everything and on me. He left me in the worst timing possible, my only real time of need "
"They told me," How can you be here while you know what you might do to people? "" people like you need to be locked up somewhere so they would not hurt others. " "" We unfortunately cannot have a relationship, I thought you were a normal person. "
All these words and more I heard from people on social media and dating apps when I told them that I am an HIV survivor. Some of them started making accusations that I intentionally want to transfer the virus to him because of my resentment towards the world. Another one told me that I was not fit for any sexual or romantic relationship, and there were those who told me that I should end my life so as not to hurt others. He advised me to kill myself because I was a danger to society.
I went to see someone on a date whom I met through a dating application and had already told that I was a survivor. At the beginning of the interview, the person was reluctant to shake hands with me. You do not know how painful it was; people thinking the virus could be transmitted by shaking hands. The date was not nice. I felt insulted from the first moment. I talked about the virus, what it is to be a survivor and asked if it was physically painful. The answer was that it was very painful, yet psychologically rather than anything else. I apologized and left the interview. And then I thought about ending everything else "
This was the testimonies of some people living with HIV in a support group for People Living With HIV (PLWH). They shared the first thoughts in their minds at the moment when they knew they had the disease or situations they would never forget because of the stigmatization of society. One of them thought of ending his life simply because of the fear of stigmatization that falls from the community on the PLWH around them, and that they are perceived as sinful adulterers and deserving of what they have been suffering from. PLWH often suffer from social stigmatization leading to depression, anxiety and suicide thoughts. They do not end their lives because they want to die but they do to end stigmatization and discrimination which falls on them from the community.
Despite spreading awareness campaigns through individual organizations, organizations and campaigns to stop the spread of false information about the virus and PLWH, there are still many people who stigmatise PLWH
"Of course, no, I will not be date an HIV survivor, I would not even risk it. He was the reason for what happened to him, he was the one who did not have safe sex. Even if I
found out that my partner has it, I will end the relationship immediately "
This was the view of someone when asked about the potential of his partner being HIV positive. Campaigns did not succeed in reaching all segments of society, but they must continue to spread awareness to those who are not aware enough.
It always happens that people abandon their partners when they know about their status as HIV positive. The abandonment by partners during this period affects the mental health of the patient. It may be thought that if one person is HIV positive and the other party is not then this happened as a result of intercourse that occurred outside the exclusive relationship between them, but this is also false information about the virus. The symptoms of the emergence of the virus may take years to begin to appear. The partner may have contracted the virus from a previous relationship. But false or scarce information about the virus is what drives people to stigmatize and make judgments.
Education is not difficult or stressful. Especially when the information may deter a person from ending his life, because ignorance is more painful than you think. A person is not forced to tell anyone whom he may cross paths with for any reason that he is a survivor due to what he faces from stigmatization, discrimination, humiliation, marginalization, bullying, and worse things than you might imagine, which makes him think twice before he comes out as an HIV survivor.
Ever since he started listening to American songs, there was a band that was his favorite. With their European beauty that attracted him, their clear voice, Back Street Boys were his childhood favorites, his teenage and until now.. For long he listened to their songs, tried to figure out and write the lyrics and he memorized them blindly. It was one of his favorite songs that said “I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did. As long as you love Me.”!
He grew up and his childhood musical dream grew up with him, that his dating life would not be affected by his simple background, even though he belongs to an old academic family, was raised in a suburb that used to host houses and villas inhabited by Pashas and the crème de la crème of the royal era in Egypt, but as everything collapsed with the July, 23rd. coup, his suburb as well has changed gradually into a popular neighborhood in the heart of the Egyptian capital. His childhood and teenage dreams have hit the painful reality: the place where he grew up, played a major role in the success he has
reached in his practical and educational life has become a stigma that follows him whenever he mentioned he belonged into this part of the city.
Welcome to Cairo! Where classist stigma follows you wherever you go.. Whoever wants to date in this city has to build up a resume like which they build preparing for an interview with a first world embassy or a global corporation. You have to be prepared for really personal questions that has nothing to do with the date, should not be asked at the beginning of dating and there is no room for in a meeting or cyber conversations.. You should also study the map of the city very well, so you know exactly which part you should belong to, so you would not be stigmatized for being a member of the stigmatized class of poverty and lowliness. You should study the popular neighborhoods that lie nearby the classy ones, as it became a classic for those who live in a popular neighborhood to belong themselves into a classier one! And when it comes to your educational background, it’s better if you have studied in one of those universities with three letters, which means necessarily that it is either a foreign or a private university.
And if you passed this in the cyber conversation, and reached the date, here comes the hardest part, you have to pick up your outfit meticulously, so you would not be shamed for wearing “casual” clothes that is not a well-known, international brand. Even smoking, you have to the brand of cigarettes you are smoking, local brands mean surly that you belong to the struggling class, the more expensive your cigarettes are, the higher your ranking gets in the dating profiles, and the class you should mingle with. And when it comes to the conversation, do not go all the way speaking the Egyptian dialect, do not use a rural, upper Egyptian or – sometimes – an Alexandrian accent, the Cairn accent is their favorite in the city, also you should include words using a foreign language (English or French) to indicate how classy you are and belonging into the upper class of this country. Do not ever try to confess that you are not fluent at one or two foreign languages, in which case, your rank will go down to the lowest class.
Yes, the childhood dating dream of “As long as you love me” has turned into the sad movie “I’m not lying, but I’m making up”! Doubt has visited him in every word someone would say, about where they live, work, study or even their previous relationships! Why not, even Me has been subjected to class stigmatization by many members of the LGBTQ+ communities.
Years ago, he met someone and a friendship started evolving, he always mentioned and bragged about his home, it is situated in one of the district’s finest squares.. Their home’s huge pace and its two levels, its details and how luxurious and fancy it was, somehow he managed to get it into any conversation he holds for no good reason or for a good reason! Its marble statues at the entrance, the fancy parties his family hosts, he managed to draw a home of an aristocratic
European family into everyone’s mind.
Though his excellent description and personal persuasion of what he says, he was not safe from the surrounding doubts, they wondered: if you live in such a house with such a classy family, why would you insist that no one visits you at home or even meet you up near it?
With time, fear of class stigmatization increased in this guy’s head, he claimed he has a foreign passport, he claimed his family has other citizenships, along with many belongings within the republic and outside it. Days have passed and his lies was discovered, no one knows until now how was it discovered that all of these were lies, and when his close friends confronted him with his lies, his response was that we live in a classist community and his lies were necessary to beautify his image, get better chances at dating and make better friends. Now this person is almost a schizophrenic and struggling to get out of the storm.
The truth that we used to brag that we were not born with a golden poon in mouth and self-dependency without counting on anyone has become obsolete. It has spread really fast within the LGBTQ+ communities, claiming living in a classy neighborhood, studying in a foreign university, having foreign roots or even a foreign passport!
Not long ago, that guy who claims having the citizenship of an Asian nation that every Egyptian dreams of visiting, that guy met by a chance along with his friends another group and a bond was formed. His friends has been always suspicious about his claims that one of them asked him repeatedly: if you are really holding that country’s passport and
you are always proud of their advancement over Egypt as well as how classy their people are rather than the vulgarity of the Egyptian: why did you come here?
It was destiny that put him with someone in the other group who lived half his life in that country, and there was the shocks: what he claimed to be his national ID of that country was a visit permit (VISA) that has expired already, the few words he threw in front of his friends are all what he knew about his “Mother Land”, and the city he lived in before coming to Egypt, he only knew the street he lived in.
Even those who were there charged on him, my friend felt nothing but petty towards him! How he reached this place where he faked a life fearing class stigmatization! How could he bear his friends’ doubts all these years until he was uncovered by chance? Even the fake accent he used, it changed within hours from discovering his fake “dual citizenship”. The more he talked the more we realized how this person was a victim of the class stigmatization that is rooted in their
thinking and rejection by the people he met in his hometown. So he created an alternative personality to himself, with a foreign citizenship that does not speak the Egyptian dialect and lots of physical changes that it became impossible to believe he was the same person he used to be years ago.
The situations when members of the LGBTQ+ members had to fake identity and create a parallel personality to survive class stigmatization are beyond counting, yet we still find those who are not shamed by their origin, class and tell the story of their struggle and rising with pride. The truth is, those who are porn with an empty mouth then managed to afford golden spoons are way better than those who are porn with it.
But the questions remains: Are those who fake criminals or victims? Without class stigmatization, would it be possible for someone to announce their identity and origin with no lying or denial!?
with the qualities of the Big community
They have told me a lot about the social stigma, yes, I know it's that thing that I face it daily by the society regarding their religions or their denomination Yes this is stigma, I would understand it from community that was raised in a specific way. With fixed stereotypes patterns that won’t accept anything new or different. These patterns were exclusively put into 2 poles, which they are woman and man. Those patterns built a society only for heterosexual people, that men are attracted to women and women are attracted to men, and whatever doesn’t fallow their rules considered perversion. Yes, I will face the violence and homophobia, transphobia, I will face the stigma by the people who has no idea about my sexual identity or my sexual orientation, they don’t know my story.
But they know only one thing which is “the 2 poles” but what I don’t get, and I can’t understand it that the stigma among the LGBTQA+ people, how can people that have stories like ours and they suffer as much as we do and they stigmatize others with hatful words. And by the way this stigmatization hurt so much more than the one we face from the heterosexual people. Because we understand the heteronormative society has close-minded mentality, we know that they are ignorant about our sexual identities and sexual orientation etc. but inside the LGBTQA+ community has its own patterns. You have to wear this or that brand to be one of us, or you should release your beard to enter our cool gang. It’s like people have no rights to live the way they want or it’s right to wear what makes you comfortable or be themselves, these things my friend we tell and teach it for the heteronormative society trying to convince them the importance of freedom speech and the importance of diversity but what happens among us is different you have to live in class neighbourhood or work in specific field like engineering or medicine, and wear the best brands, and if you don’t do so you will be stigmatized and you will be called tacky.
Yes, you are not good enough to hang out with us, you are not in the same level of us or how do we look or our life styles, it’s like they are Martians, they talk in foreign language and they lifestyle is out of the
space. Though we should be together and work together to face the external community to change them and make more tolerant for the different people. We know there are diversity of people, we fight to make LGBTQA+ community free of stigmas and racism. So, we are working to make some LGBTQA+ people to be more tolerant and more accepting instead of working and focusing on heteronormative people. We are now in 2018 and we are still one of the 3rd world countries, we still criminalize the intercourse between adults without marriage and arrest them, because the government doesn’t know heterosexual or homosexual, everyone is charged in adultery crime, and that what should unite us to learn how to protect ourselves and support each other regarding the gender or the sexuality. I know that all of us have been raised in unhealthy atmosphere and that implemented that normativity in our minds and forcing the melds of male and female. Due to that we as LGBTQA+ people feel abnormal individuals, and we feel ashamed of ourselves, and deny our sexuality and identity, which make us hate each other and stigmatize other people, we feel the hate and rejection and disgust. When we talk about social stigmatization among the LGBTQA+ we directly mention the interview with some LGBTQA+ activists which they should defend for the humans regarding their colours, gender or sexual orientation, but they would mock or spread the hate speech against some people like trans people against gay and lesbians, or cis-gender people shaming non-binary gender people. That makes me want to scream out loud and say STOP STIGMIZING EACH OTHER.
All of LGBTQA+ people should know the basics of consents and respect the others because there are no regulations could control gender and sexuality expression, and the only rule that we should apply is everyone can express him/her/themselves in the way they feel right, with no stigma or rejection. I hope all the stigma, rejections and hate will be stopped. The Exclusion against the non-normativity people. Or from LGBTQA+ people against each other based on their colours or their life styles. We should stop presenting the monochrome image of society and apply on gays, lesbians or trans people. We should not to forget that we all of us in one society suffer from the enough problems, which that should make us work together and look for allies to face this heteronormativity in our society and understand with respect our differences. To sum it up I hope we get united and be proud of our differences in our looks, gender and sexual orientation. And trust our capability of change to the best with ambition to remove and stigma or racism against the special and outstanding people.
The LGBTQI+ community in Sudan is like any other LGBTQI+ community in the world; it is generally marginalized and strongly stigmatized that will always face many conflicts. Those conflicts arise from a place of misunderstanding and that often creates a type of stigma that is based on ignorant stereotypes.
I would say it began - throughout my lifetime - since I start being fully aware of my sexual orientation and comfortable with going out with other gay men, being a close friend to many lesbian women, having a couple of gender non-binary friends and myself being gender fluid which made me very comfortable with dressing as any gender as I want and specially when I dress up as a woman in different private parties or my friends’ birthdays. All of those factors made me face different types of stigma within my own LGBTQI+ community which are strongly rooted in the same stereotypes that we suffer from as LGBTQI+ from the society which knows nothing about our struggles and our needs. Yet it's much more painful when it
comes from the ones you believe to be more understanding and supportive, the ones who face the same kind of discrimination and yet they discriminate against me and other friends of mine in any different times and situations.
The first type of stigma and discrimination that I was faced with was when I started coming out, where I was treat as a shameless, godless person who is proud of a degrading behavior (being openly gay) and it didn’t stopped there but I was also called a faggot by other gay guys who were in the closet back then. That was around 5 years ago but today other individuals who are still in the closet or struggling to accept themselves are being stigmatized and accused of being in denial which unfortunately adds a lot to the struggle they already go through as they can’t find acceptance in the society nor the LGBTQI+ community.
The financial class and social status play a huge role in being stigmatized and discriminated against. I recall a situation in one of the IDAHOTB celebrations where we were trying to make it as inclusive as possible. The invitation was sent to a group as diverse as possible. I remember seeing how the group who came from a lower class was treated and
isolated and getting all the feedback about them which has no explanation or any scientific base such as them being too uneducated to communicate with or being “diseases carriers”. All those false accusations echo the same social misconceptions about the LGBTQI+ that we all suffer from.
The gender identity is one of the most common factors for being stigmatized. The idea that all gay men are sex addicts and transgender people are lost and confused and they are facing issues with accepting their sexual orientation and bisexuals are not welcomed because they are players and not trustworthy. All these kinds of stereotyping, rejection and stigma around those individuals affect them (and me as I am part of them) and how we view ourselves. I remember once that I faced a huge stigma and rejection in a space that I had never imagined facing such a stigma due to my gender identity in. I was in a friend’s birthday party where everyone is to some extent openly queer or a strong ally, my friend and his longtime boyfriend were hosting the party in their house where they live together as an openly gay couple who host drag shows on a regular basis. In the birthday and as a gender fluid person I was dressed up as a lady and I was feeling so comfortable and so like myself and we were drinking and having fun, till someone came up to me saying in a way implying that I should be ashamed of what I am “oh you are a pretty woman’’ and I replied “yes I am” which made the guy really angry and he started screaming out of nowhere telling me that this was not Europe and where I thought I was and that I was nothing but an attention seeker and there was no such thing as gender fluid and people who claim such a thing are lost and it's nonsense not to be one of the two socially designated genders. My gender non-binary friends face the same kind of stigma and rejection which all comes from the social discrimination that we all face as individuals who don’t
fit within the social norms.
Within all this stigma I still can see a great break happening, there is more willingness to learn and understand more about our identity within the community and also from the allies and supporters. I am starting to see a growing number of people who are willing to understand you before they start judging you and this gives me the power to continue being myself freely and never hide anything. Accepting stigma and not fighting it will make our lives harder, and to those who discriminate against anyone who is different from them, they have to be aware that we are all unique in some way and if we would like to be accepted we have to learn how to accept others.
The LGBTQI+ community is an inseparable subset of the mother society. This fact is known to many and perhaps all, but it is always overlooked by the vast majority, who raise the whips without any mercy or reconsideration on anyone who is unaware and makes a mistake whether it is a statement or an act, without asking themselves or just giving the benefit of doubt as to whether this action is caused intentionally or unintentionally, this person is conscious and aware of his behavior or not.
Perhaps if we asked ourselves these questions, we would have saved ourselves a lot of differences and arguments, which often end with the most disastrous and mutual rupture and hostility. The dispute is not only between two people. It seems to be a dispute between two parties running a fierce election competition and each party has its own supporters and its opponent. The dispute continues to influence the issue and so our collective loss does.
Racism, discrimination, hatred, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and many other negative and repugnant traits exist among some members of the LGBTQI+ community
as in the mother community, or rather inherited from the mainstream culture. We are shaped by its habits, traditions, lifestyle, transactions and outlook on everyone else even our own self-image. We may find a young person who was born to a fair-skinned family who learned to ridicule the dark-skinned ones, or one who is born to a particular religion, learns to ridicule the rituals of other religions. The predominant culture is that of homophobia, gender-gendered phobias, classism and ethnic segregation even in the finer details of the language and daily interactions.
So we cannot be shocked or surprised to see a member of the LGBTQI+ community embracing any of these attitudes and we cannot count on the notion that the members of the community must be more intellectual than average and must be inspired by curiosity about gender and socioeconomical issues because this culture is rarely found in the mother community. However, those who have the curiosity of knowledge rarely find Arabic materials that talk about racism, homophobia, transgenderism, bisexualism, discrimination, stigmatization, etc. But we
must count on understanding that the position of the LGBTQI+ community as a minority calls upon all of its members to be more open, understanding and receptive to others than the heterosexual majority which is in harmony with the gender identity rules set by the society. One of the most important roles in spreading the acceptance of the other and rejecting hatred is that of the educational institutions and the various official and private media. Some of the curricula operate on the basis of social discrimination amongst the students, and the various mainstream media sources broadcast plain hate speech which incitement to violence on a continuous basis. This reflects the orientations of the state and the political administration and the public attitude in full.
We indeed suffer from a number of problems, this is an undeniable fact, but these problems were not born in the womb of the LGBTQI+ community but rather passed on from the mother society. We urgently need to define these problems first, then to focus on them, and to confront them with all possible means and methods.
First, we need to identify all the negative characteristics of the LGBTQI+ community and highlight each individual attribute and to include initiatives in the speeches of individuals, groups and activists to confront these attitudes and to reinforce the positive ones. We also need to study the causes of these negative beliefs and study how to dismantle them. And eventually, how to communicate appropriately with people who suffer from such traits.
Stereotyping is one of the things that make individuals accept each other less, we need to look for the reasons these stereotypes exist then how to break them and then propagate a culture of non-profiling.
One of the reasons that cause these ideas
also is generalizations and passing judgments, in other words, to deal with someone as a representative of a specific class of people. We need to consecrate the culture that says being a member of a particular community does not make one the chief representative of it. Similarly, any of his unsavory statements and acts such as adultery, for example, are not linked at all to his sexual orientation or anything of his sexual identity. But it only speaks of the person himself.
These two factors and many others can be combated by creating for each segement of the community a space to express itself in a way that represents it completely and through which it can define itself to all other groups and to its members in the first place.
Other people may practice racism, phobias or misogyny as a form of recycling because they are subjected to it by the majority of society, so they inflict that on the less privileged members of their community. These people like this need a special kind of communication with and require some familiarity with human psychology so as not to aggravate the matter.
Communication is also one of the factors that can break down the previous negative traits by confronting a person who perpetuates those misconceptions with a person who suffers from the consequences of those misconceptions so that the person can see the reality of the situation and then discuss and exchange their views, beliefs and experiences. This greatly changes the mindset and attitude of people towards others, and perhaps also towards themselves.
It is not only required from us to face those issues, but it is also needed from us to spread and disseminate a spirit of renunciation of racism, hatred, xenophobia, or masculinity. The real success is that the LGBTQI+ community rejects and does not tolerate any of these things.
The downside is that our small society surly suffers from problems, yet the upside is that we have the willingness and the power to alleviate these problems, and here lies the hope. Here lies the best future for all of us. The norm of the universe is always change. Therefore, let us all work to bring change and its consequences, to talk to our comrades and in our circles and to spread amidst our circles compassion, love and brotherhood and the rejection of discrimination and hatred, to create a healthy environment instead of the toxic environment in which we were created in order to allow our society to recover from these qualities imprinted in us, to give everyone the opportunity to freely express themselves and their ideas even if they were wrong so we could monitor them and work to dismantle them or replace them with ideas and attitudes that do not carry any hatred and to be closer to people.
He followed the nurse quietly, a thousand thoughts have been running through his head, wondering, what if the worst happens?! What if people found out? How am I going to face it? Should I tell my family then?
“Do not you ever have sex with him, he is HIV positive! “ Countless times he heard this warning, in different occasions, sometimes people volunteer it in casual gossip over a drink or shisha with friends! If there is something most people never get bored of, it is viciously gossiping and randomly defaming others for no good reason, maybe it stems out of rejection, somehow.
He could have never imagined settling for becoming one of them. A rush of memories and faces came back to him. One of them was of an acquaintance who he knew many years ago and was tested positive, it shocked everyone around him, chiefly his closest friends. They initially offered all sorts of support, listened to him when he talked about it, gave a shoulder to cry on whenever he felt down and walked him through every step of getting his medication all the way through his fallout with his boyfriend shortly after.
Yes, his boyfriend revealed to him that this illness must have been the universe’s way of inflicting revenge for what he did to him: as he stayed for years by his side and endured his infidelity, immaturity and lack of sense hoping that someday this is going to change and go well, yet it never did!
Not long afterwards that each of his friends started getting weary of hanging out with him and avoiding physical contact of any sort. His battle with HIV became a subject for gossip among his close friends in absentia, they chew him out over and spat him out until it all became a silly joke. Some of them sadly weren’t above using this piece of information as a trivia piece to break the silence with random people.
He thought to himself that he could never be like this, indeed, he was blessed with supportive friends. However, this is not like being robbed or mugged! This is something which people may lose their jobs and social life over.
Another face came to him, fleeting, that of a teenager who discovered it by accident. The company where he works was running a
random drug test, yet, they ran also a viral markers’ test. He received the news along with getting fired from his job, not only this, but also his co-workers stopped talking to him including those who are within the LGBTQ+ community! They shamed him for what he brought onto himself! And whoever was left to call friends avoided sharing water bottles, cups and food with him for the fear of catching the virus from him! To make matters worse, even his best friend and partner started slut-shaming him, assuming that he caught it from sex!
The final straw to that poor kid was how he trusted someone in a moment of desperation and not long afterwards, she started calling and texting everyone, warning them not to hang out, share stuff and/or have any sexual interaction with him. She betrayed his trust and stigmatized him for the battle he will be fighting for as long as he could!
Another face and another name he thinks of, this guy had to leave the whole country to have some peace. He was a tough guy who got shamed by his partner after so many years together, knowing and being with him willingly that he was living with HIV. Nonetheless, whenever a fight took place, his partner would blackmail him for having it! Not to mention being excluded by some friends and even family members for having to fight the horrible virus.
Evidently the shaming and stigmatizing series continues as people get more and more ignorant and insensitive. They have no idea what HIV fighters have to endure and the battle they fight every day to survive. He could never survive this, granted that he could stick to leading a healthy lifestyle, taking medications on schedule and avoiding any unsafe sexual practice. However, the one
thing that is completely insufferable is the stigma
He remembers a guy he once dated, when asked why he would never get back to his ex even though he was still hovering around and trying to take him back. He was shocked by the answer that it is because his ex got HIV! He was unable to understand how a well-educated guy and a literate person would still think that a guy with HIV is damaged goods that cannot be loved and committed to! The date turned into a lecture about how medications work and how to protect your partner from passing the virus into him, along with a few examples he has known and/or read about!
He recalls another moment when a fellow doctor refused to deal with a patient who has it!
The patient was a married guy who did not know he has it, the poor man did not even know after he was diagnosed that he had to use protection in order not to pass it to his wife. One day the guy came for a casual consult and was asked if he was using condoms during intercourse, he didn’t even know what protection or condoms were!
It was that moment when the doctor refused to even touch the patient, when reminded of the oath he had taken, his answer was that the oath was put before HIV was discovered! Which is weird given the more infectious, hostile and dangerous infections doctors deal with!
As it turned out, the nurse took him to a room at the end of the corridor to give him instructions on how the virus may pass, how to protect himself and how to have safe sex along with a dozen condoms, advising him to come for a check-up regularly or whenever
he is exposed to a possible source of infection.
It was that moment when he could not help but wonder, when the time comes, which would be harder: committing himself to taking a pill or two every day or having to hide his illness?! Which would hurt more: his closest friends’ attitude towards him if he comes out or the stigma he would face by the entire community!? What about his dating life! People around him shame and stigmatize people for a battle they are fighting on behalf of everyone who is not! Would he be able to keep on the same dating lifestyle?! Would he have to tell everyone he dates or shares bed with about his HIV status even if they take the necessary precautions of protection?! Would he lose his career over this!?
By the end of his day, he could not help but change view HIV+ fighters in a different light! These people should not be shamed, shunned or stigmatized, they should be saluted, encouraged and supported to keep on fighting, living and integrating into the community! Let’s imagine for a moment if everyone with HIV decided to hide it out of fear, it would not be long before the virus spreads and maybe mutate and spread even faster like the flu!
In medicine they taught us that when HIV was first discovered it was called GRIDS (Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome), which was changed later to HIV (Human Immuno-deficiency Virus) and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). So if the medical community has named the virus and the disease so that they make sure it has no stigmatization for the LGBTQ+ community since it could be transferred with ways other than sex while there have been money and effort spent by heroes from within that same community to combat the disease, why do still some people insist on making it harder for humanity to win this battle?
Members of the LGBTQI community, like other members of the society, grew up with an inherited legacy of social and religious beliefs, ideologies, traditions, norms, and principles that are deeply rooted in our minds. These internalized biases and prejudices remain a part of our characters until we reach a phase where we can crystallize our own thoughts, develop our own mentalities, and evolve. We then adopt new notions and embrace a lifestyle of our own after a process of filtering the inherited beliefs that were imposed on us during our childhoods. That being said, the LGBTQI community is not infallible, as we are humans and capable of error and Moreover, we are not immune to discrimination, racism, and social stigmatization; in fact, we practice them internally within our communities.
Although we struggle to convince others to accept us and embrace pluralism and diversity, we continue to suffer from segregation, divisions, and willful isolationism, LGBTQI individuals adopt preconceived views towards each other as sexual minorities at all levels, whether socially, religiously, sexually, or economically.
There is no doubt that there is a tendency
towards isolationism and ghettoizations. For example, the vast majority of gay men socialize together and distance themselves from their Lesbian peers and vice versa. In other cases, the transsexual and transgender community are not integrated into the scene. Each category of the LGBT excludes one another and practices some kind of discrimination and exclusion marked by prejudiced and stereotypical attitudes.
Many gay men are oblivious to the fact that the rights of lesbian, bisexual, transgender , transsexual, queer, and intersex people are a part of a greater context of their legitimate rights and intersect within the realm of human rights in general and personal and individual freedoms in particular. Here are some examples of the forms of internal self-inflicted discrimination and stigmatization among the LGBT Community:
▼Gender/ sex-based stigma:
► Adopting the same prejudiced and misogynistic viewpoints towards women as heteronormative patriarchal males. These views demonize them and cause their exclusion.
► Disdaining transgender and transsexual people or contempt of men whose gender expression is contrary to what’s common or perceived and imposed by the society’s sexist standards, in addition to and underestimating them or feeling ashamed of dealing with them.
► Confusion between cross-dressing / transvestite men and transgender persons.
► The widespread stigmatization among gay men of each other according to preferences in sexual practices and the contempt of those who identify as “bottom”, and the fact that the “top” is portrayed as the superior person. Such notions are incompatible with the notion of fighting against sexism and hyper-masculinity, but rather they consolidate the idea of male superiority. Although we suffer from the excessive masculinity exhibited by some heterosexual men which amounts to bullying in some instances, we still blindly glorify the macho behaviors among the gay community.
► Stigma is also linked to gender expression, especially mannerism of speech, gait, and pronouns used in conversations. The use of the term “fairy queen” as a derogatory to disdain certain groups of gay men who prefer to express themselves differently is a form of discrimination.
► Mocking transgender/ transsexual people and refraining from using the pronouns of their choice, and promoting the misconceptions that the majority of them engage in sex work, is also a common form among the LGB community.
► Mocking lesbians and feminists by certain groups of gay men.
► The segregation of lesbians from gay men and vice versa.
► The isolation of the Trans community from the rest of their peers from the LGB community.
► Confusion between intersex and transsexualism.
► The exploitation of Women to fulfill personal interests, for example, a gay man may be forced to get married to a heterosexual woman as a social cover and in compliance with his family’s pressure and without confessing to the wife about his sexual orientation. The man may do this while engaging in sexual relationships with other men regardless of the practices being safe or not. By doing so, the wife’s right to sexual or romantic relationships is violated.
Some gay men might find it demeaning and shameful for them to accept the wife’s right to engage in other relationships as abating their manhood. This is because they grew up in a male-dominated cultural climate and the patriarchal society that stresses the supremacy of men over women.
In such a societal construct, the latter are not free to exercise their bodily and sexual rights and have no right to choose their sexual partners. Some of them engage in unsafe sexual practices and lack sexual health awareness which could subsequently transmit sexually transmitted diseases to the wife.
► Judging sexually liberated women regardless of their sexual orientation, describing them as “sluts”. This can be attributed to the regressive perception of sexual liberties as a moral degeneration.
► Some gay men do not avoid using female genitalia as swear words, although this shall not be a shameful element (such as using the word vagina as insult).
► Believing that feminists suffer from complexions related to misandry.
► Views by feminists and lesbians that can appear as a misandry.
► Mutual Homophobia and transphobia.
► Feminists and Lesbians dismissing transsexuals, transgender, and gay individuals’ issues as of less priority and vice versa.
▼Stigma based on appearance:
► Promoting a false image of the optimal body shape and weight for the gay youth, this is in part due to the social media applications and the idealization of the fit, muscular, or hairy-chested and long bearded men and body-shaming overweight people. In some cases, mocking slim or non-hairy men as well as putting down women whose shape or size doesn’t fit the mold of the stereotypical image of fitness as if all people must be models.
▼Age-based stigma:
► Many young gay men underestimate older men and classify them according to age categories.
▼ HIV stigma:
There is a state of horror and stigma among the LGBT community against people living with HIV. Some people move away once they find out that a certain person is living the virus, but they can go far and defame, expose, stigmatize, and disclose his condition. Sometimes individuals wishing to defame HIV positive individuals create false accounts on applications in order to destroy the reputation of the person, slander against people who are not living with the virus for revenge or personal reasons is also common.
It is thus important for all categories of the
LGBT community to embrace liberal thoughts based on diversity and the rejection of all forms of stigma, and prejudice. Furthermore, it is crucial to create inclusive and non-exclusionary communities that include -but are not limited to- gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, in addition to queer, gender-fluid, pansexual, asexual, intersex, human rights defenders, heterosexual allies, advocates of bodily and sexual rights, and feminists.
By this, a unified front could be established to more effectively lobby for the abolition of the restrictive laws that interfere with the freedom of our bodies and suppresses our identity, tendencies and beliefs.
Our groups must unite with young men and women who struggle daily, like us, to move freely in public spaces because of verbal and sexual harassment due to their non-conforming appearance. Regardless of
our position on the issue of sex work, we must denounce the stigma against sex workers and defend their rights and the right of people living with HIV to live with dignity without having to be subject to stigmatization or the distortion of their image. It is important, as well to not bisexuality; alter the misconceived image about them being sexually greedy or unfaithful to their partners.
We shall not stigmatize patterns of relationships favored by each person, whether monogamist or polygamist, in addition to rejecting prejudices about gender expression, distancing ourselves from the masculine outlook of many gays, and act to end the demeaning shaming of gay men who exhibit feminine behavior, continue to fight the stigma against transsexual people and respect the pronouns they use (he /she/ them/they).
We always have been and still are victims of marginalization, violence, stigmatization, discrimination and misleading claims, so we must lead the way to eliminating these social plagues. It is our duty to present a model of pluralism, acceptance of diversity, and adoption of all spectra.
Note: This article is not intended to shame those gay men who are naturally masculine and acknowledges that is their own personal right to be so. It specifically addresses the toxic form of masculinity that is practiced by a group of people whether heterosexual or homosexual.
During the past year, social networking platforms witnessed a significant increase in the number of pages supporting the rights of the LGBTQI+ community and its supporters, especially after the famous concert of the Lebanese band Mashrou' Laila in Cairo supported by homosexuals. The concert was followed by widespread arrests of homosexual individuals who were prosecuted in systematic forms through homosexual dating applications or random campaigns through police patrols passing through central Cairo and arresting those suspected of sexual orientation based on public appearance. It is not over here. In general, the community has witnessed an increase in violence against homosexuals and we have seen many videos of ordinary people who vow to beat or insult homosexuals, let alone a huge number of anti-gay and anti-gay publications. Even the progressive circles and circles, educated elites and liberal and leftist parties, mostly remained silent about the event, citing the silence as the priority of other struggles over the gay struggle.
Of course, this wave of hatred and violence
against homosexuals has been followed by many supportive and modernized pages in the name of the LGBTQI+ community, which are meant to respond to the accusations made against LGBTQI+ and the theoretical roots of gay and transgender rights and others who have violated the prevailing stereotype of gender in society.
The hate speech in Egypt and in the Middle East itself is based on two fundamental issues: morality and religion. The movements of the LGBTQI+ community have based themselves on two main ideas for mobilizing support: the principle of accepting the other in the face of moral stigmatization, and the position of science supporting homosexuality in the face of the rejectionist religious position. Both of which are part of a Western proposal developed by the idealistic struggle movements in North societies since the Second World War.
In this article I will review some of the problems based on the first proposal to defend the rights of the LGBTQI+ in Egypt, which is the question of accepting the
other and ways of developing this supportive discourse.
Despite the goodwill behind calling for acceptance of the other, they often lack the progressive essence of utilitarianism and mold the other in a moral framework and a specific model to be reached. The main problem in accepting the other is recognition of the existence of the "other", which necessarily follows the existence of a pattern and a specific model of what should be the other, then turn the controversy to the difference on the image of the other marginalized all that falls between the two moral images of the other.
A gay person in the eyes of society carries a negative image and an ethical framework that is often described as a deviation. I am necessarily a criminal, dishonorable and unethical person and not trustworthy members of the community, especially children, or a person who is unpretentious and lacking in character and seeks to fill the void of his personality with the masculanity of one of them in the case of homosexuality in males. This scenario is very familiar in Egyptian cinema and drama, which never touched a gay person in the frame of a good character. Homosexuality if for society is a model of moral failure and symbolic of all that is outcast.
On the other hand, he establishes a speech that accepts the other to a completely opposite view of homosexuals, a good and good homosexual who is always subjected to unjustified persecution and always appears in the form of someone who begs the sympathy of others for his moral cause.
With a simple look at Western film products in the last decade, we can see the increasing number of films that speak of homosexuals. In most of these films, there is a model for the ideal person who is alterna-
tive to the perceptions of society. A person who is good, sensitive, educated, helps others and of course an exceptionally handsome person.
As if there was no such thing as an evil person or homosexual who ran against the declared standards of beauty. There is no such homosexual as a religious person. There is no such homosexual who is homeless and poor. There is homosexual who has limited education and culture, and of course there is no homosexual who is ethnic minority except for few films.
Homosexual is necessarily a person is handsome and educated and is middle class or affordable and good-hearted and sensitive.
Between the two scenarios, all the rest fall prey to persecution, contempt and social stigma, not only from the LGBTQI+ community but also within it. The poor homosexual will suffer twice. Once because he is homosexual in the eyes of the community of the Gentiles and once because he is poor and does not fit as a picture of homosexuals in front of the other. A person will also have limited education and culture twice, once for being homosexual in front of a community of gays once that he is not fit to represent homosexuals in front of the community of gays.
We can then extend the line to see a lot of disdain within the LGBTQI+ community and we have already seen some of them in the wake of the recent crisis after the Laila concert. Many homosexuals criticized their counterparts for their feminine style of talking or wearing earrings or for their behavior on the street, and we always hear the phrase "This behavior does not represent us and hurt homosexuals." As if there was an official model for gay men and a specific speech that they all had to follow. The problem, then, in the acceptance of the other is
that it creates an ideal model of what the homosexual should have, from the appearance and the body, to the style of speaking and the cultural and social level. This will necessarily create a bourgeois framework for LGBTQI+ movements in Egypt, which is already happening. It is hard to imagine a gay worker, a peasant, a homeless gay, a poor gay in gay movements and groups. As if there were a minimum of demands to conform to the desired social outlook within the LGBTQI+ community, which is necessarily needed for what some believe is an improvement in the image of homosexuals in front of the other. But the biggest problem in proposing "accepting the other" is that it is a moral fabric that is fundamentally illogical. Any moral model that does not consider the benefit as an inherent part of it usually ends up in a form of ethical fencing that kills anyone who does not belong to one of its poles. Why homosexuality is not brought up within the framework of the liberation of sex from production?
Beyond the The moral and religious discourse that rejects homosexuality There is a more solid discourse that talks about the importance of production and deals with human bodies as products in a large capitalist society machine that only thinks about recycling the wheels of production at the expense of human bodies. One form of sex is then accepted. hetrosexual sex that ends with having children as part of the production process of labor and procreation of humans. Even anal sex among hetrosexuals is rejected and forbidden by many arguments that do not hide mainly because it is unproductive and does not end with children.
Sex in the community is a tool for the production of children, not for entertainment, and the state here will act as an observer of production and seeks to adjust the bodies to fit the production process and to ensure that
nobody goes out of its law.
We can then realize that there are areas of understanding with the sexual liberation movements of hetrosexuals seeking to free sex from the production pattern and the advertised marriage framework. We can also realize that there are frameworks for building with labor and union movements and the poor of society to liberate the body and work from surplus value and the obsession of capitalist production. We can root for a struggle based on mutual benefit and solidarity with the other, which is solidarity with the self, not moral solidarity that establishes the idea of moral gift and begging sympathy and compassion.
We do not need compassion as much as we need to understand the frameworks and community relations through which we can create common mechanisms of action that liberate society as a whole without adhering to the idea of struggle priority and the miserable offer of degrees of struggle.
The LGBTQI+ community in Egypt is an integral part of the larger Egyptian society as a whole. As far as the LGBTQI+ community is concerned with systematic violence from society and the state and religious institutions, the LGBTQI+ community itself suffers from chronic societal diseases that disturb it all the time and inherited it from Egyptian society. Everyone in the LGBTQI+ community has been exposed to situations in which they have experienced violence from members of the LGBTQI+ community itself. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is the attempt by some members of the community to keep up with the society in its details, style and rules that do not apply to us in the first place!
Personally, I have met many members of the LGBTQI+ community through dating applications who have always had some problems with their sexuality and with other people's sexuality as well. A sense of homophobia and internal transsexualism always accompanies them and makes them indisputable and does not accept others from their community. But for me personally, the biggest incident I have faced and psychologi-
cally hurt me so much was that the victim was involved in incidents of harassment and rape. Which I did not expect from gay peers, to follow in the footsteps of male society step by step to this degree. In 2016 I met someone through a dating application and went to his house. After I entered and stripped him completely, he told me that he was not gay and that he was different, but he brought the "kholat" to the house because he could not bring girls because of the real estate guard. I refused to have sex with him and was inspired to go. I was surprised by the resistance and with the resistance I was beaten and stripped by force from my clothes .. Verbally, sexually and physically assaulted me on this day .. I heard all the insults that I never imagined that one day. All my attempts to resist this day failed ... I tried to photograph my mobile camera but I was putting my hands on my face ... After he reached his sexual desire and calmness I was able to complete my clothes and convince him to leave me out of the house. I remained depressed for a long time and suffered from severe pains in many places of my body. But that was not the only
crisis then .. Whenever I try to tell what happened to one of my acquaintances of homosexuals I was facing charges of ridicule and ridicule .. I remember well when I told someone and his response was "My sis, you went there from the beginning to his place, what were you expecting from him, not to force you and let you go?! And c'mon tell me where that hunky I wanna go to him!! "
After a while, she forgot what had happened and avoided talking to him or telling the story. I became obsessed with collecting information about anyone I met through dating programs before I met him to secure myself and be able to access him again in the event of my injury .. I decreased my sexual activity a lot and I rarely meet anyone through any of the dating applications deployed.
After a while I began to make an effort to build a circle of understanding and supportive knowledge that, in the event of any incident of violence or abuse, will not hesitate for a moment to provide support.
Internal stigmatization, personal ridicule and victimhood often distract you from feeling safe inside you, shake your confidence, shake your trust in your body, your features, your skin color, your taste in clothes, your social level, your life skills, etc.
Always feel that you must disappear and not disclose anything .. You must hide your body so that no one makes fun of it, you should not talk about sexual experiences so that no one will describe you with shame, you should hide everything and be ashamed of everything and be very typical.
What I feel about you is the first step to dealing with these feelings. Frankly, I was able to skip this stage through a long journey of work. This was the first step in this way. You can do this with a special psychotherapist. But you have to talk about what makes
you shy. , Your experiences, your shape and your body as they are. Feel full satisfaction with them and appreciate your constant efforts to improve them.
After that, you will be reduced to the opinions of others, whether they are from the community of LGBTQI+ or others .. You will have ready answers to bullying and arrogance. After this you must pick the people who love you, appreciate you and support you for what you are.