An Angry Lesbian in the Middle East
“We are judged everywhere we go,” She said to her friend. “People judge us based on the looks, they call girls with short haircuts “boya”, which is basically using the word as if it is the “female version” of the word boy, they also refer to soft men as “tant” which is offensive for men as it is meant in a way to underestimate their masculinity, and they can literally get us fired from work, or be kicked out of the house if they find out about our sexuality."
"Now the story does not end here, does it?” heasked her with a sad look in his eyes.
“No my dear, it never does.” She tapped on his left shoulder and went on explaining, “You know, I just want to let this out, I am starting to believe that our community is being so judged that we ourselves got lost in this judgmental world and ended up judging ourselves, our community and whoever walks in or out!” she lit a cigarette and looked away with anger starting to show in her tone. “Almost every time I try to get closer to a woman, because of my “too feminine” looks they would assume that I am straight, freak out and walk away, and wait it gets better,” she said. ”when I date a butch, I can’t introduce her to the family because of the obvious looks and we end up taking our separate ways since my family does not know. You see my friend, here in the community almost everything is based on pure first judgment of the looks, without considering the brains, the heart, and the purity of the human being standing right in front of them, just like our society judging us.”
“Babe, I am being judged for being the soft man they don’t want to see in the society,” he said. “and I am being adored in the community, but yet not for anything but the looks, and you are being judged for who you are “special-friends” with in front of your family, and being judged in our own community for looking the way you like to look. I know you are angry, I know you have been through so much…”
“It is not about the judgments anymore.” She interrupted him with tears starting to fill her eyes “Now, it is about the heartache, it is about who I am, where do I feel accepted, and to just be?!”
“This is all because you are unique, you being who you are is always good enough, and for those who want to judge you they actually make it easier for you to eliminate them off your close circle of friends or the special one, and for this particular reason, the one who will appreciate you for who you are, and will like the good and accept the bad, that will be the unique special one to remain in your life, she will be the person who will not ask you to change to fit into any community’s or society’s standards.”
“It is just too hard to grow up in a family that expects you to live the traditional “normal” way, and then you just walk away from all of it, the traditions, and the life they planned for you. You leave it all to the one place you thought was safe, and you get rejected!”
“Wherever you go, this will be found, you do not need to be homosexual to feel rejected, yet it sure has a higher probability of happening, but it is okay, you know why? It is no longer about the groups, we live in a fast-changing world, and people could fall in love over screens for God’s sake! This change made us live in a more of a materialistic world, but some people are coming back to their senses and realizing the need of the true emotions in their lives, those people will come together and that’s what you need, so again, it is no longer about the groups or the judging or the lifestyle, it is about the fulfilling satisfaction that you will receive from the special woman who will see through you.”
“You know, you make perfect sense. Sometimes all we need is pure heart talk. Thank you.”
She stared at the glass of red wine in her right hand, and saw shades of her eyes reflected in the glass as if they were staring right back at her, then thought to herself “Imagine a life where lesbians are accepted, and the whole idea of being queer is no longer queer…"
Interrupted by the voice of her friend “I was 15 when I started feeling things towards men, I was a religious little boy, and I refused to accept those feelings. I started having dreams of being with men, and I freaked out! So I started praying more and seeing different sheikhs hoping I will be cured, but nothing worked. I tried for 3 years to “cure” myself but everything went in veins, that’s when I started realizing it was not a disease, gay is normal, gay is who I am, lesbian is who you, straight is who Layla our friend is.”
“And now thinking about it, these are just labels we are putting for what we mainly like to do in bed, and for who we like to hold hands with, which I find ridiculous!”
"We need to start talking more openly about it, this fear you and I have of coming out will be on the way of our moving on with someone special in life." 
“No, I can’t come out not because of fear but love, there is no need to let the people who sacrificed for me the most to know about this, not because their love might change or the way they see me would, but because I worry how they will feel, will they get a heart attack? Will they blame themselves forever? We always strive to be accepted for who we are, but how about we accept them for who they are, for the ideas they were born with, I can’t come and change that for them when they are this old. Besides, I live alone, my personal life is mine.”
“But if we say this for every case then we will never be accepted, and that is the root of our issue, we need to change their mindset about homosexuality, about the way the LGBT community is viewed, I believe we need to start talking about it more openly and make people understand it even if we start talking about it as if we are straight and hiding our identity, then little by little we come out, we ask for our rights, because this is a social change, one that is influenced also by religion, so it won’t be easy but it has to be done, slowly.”
“Now thinking about it this way, you are right. Enough with the lies, the double lives we are having, the fears, the mocking and the bullying. Enough.”
Published in BROAD Feminist and Social Justice Magazine / Chicago - Oct. 2014, Pages 29-30By ABEER ALLANhttp://issuu.com/broadmagazine/docs/b...