Gay and Arab

Two young queer Arabs discuss the unique pressures their dual identity presents

by RANIA HABIB

In a city where being gay is as taboo as smoking marijuana is in Amsterdam, Akram and Sam remain an oddity. Both gay, they share a bond that makes them stand out from the rest of Montreal's gay community. They are Arab, and are both exceedingly aware of the taboo they symbolize in the Arab culture. While their common ground is palpable, Akram and Sam deal with their homosexuality very differently (both agreed to discuss their lives for this article on condition of anonymity).

Akram, a 21-year-old Palestinian, has lived in Montreal for 17 years. A fashion design student, he embodies what your average straight Joe would probably call flamboyant. Upon my first encounter with him, he spoke unabashedly of a new pair of pants he bought that make his "ass look so sexy!"

Hush hush

In contrast, Sam, a 20-year-old Palestinian who has been in the city for 16 years, is less obvious about his homosexuality, the type of man whose looks could easily allow him to pass for straight. He's definitely more discreet. Sitting in a crowded coffee shop, he cautiously lowers his voice every time he mentions the word "gay," for fear of people overhearing him.

While Akram and Sam are not involved in a relationship, they met over a year ago in a chat room and have been friends ever since. The first time I met them was at their first in-the-flesh rendezvous, the apprehension of first meetings making the disparity in their personalities all the more obvious. The difference in their attitude towards homosexuality and their cultural background was striking.

"It's not that I'm against the Arabic culture," explains Akram. "I just don't like the way they think or the way they act. They're so stubborn and not open-minded enough. In the Arabic community here, I've never been accepted, I've always been rejected. They didn't like the way I acted, thought, dressed. Don't get me wrong, I do talk to Arabic people, it's not all of them, just most of them. The way I see it is, get a grip and get over it, there's a war going on right now. Why don't you care about that instead of thinking about who I'm sleeping with?"

Family values

Sam is more understanding of why his culture has not yet accepted homosexuality. "I don't have any hard feelings against the Arab culture," he says. "I think it's human nature. It's just taboo because there is a strong value of family, not only in the Arab world but really in the Mediterranean region. It's just that it's too different for them to start understanding, it's something that's very new to them."

Being in the closet, Sam is remarkably accepting of the difficulty Arabs face in accepting homosexuality as a normal part of life. He had his first sexual experience at 16, and he has led what he describes as a "double life" ever since. "I'm not exploding to tell somebody, I don't see the emergency. It's been six years now, you get used to living a double life. I've actually started enjoying it - I know it's weird, but it's sort of fun."

Though he describes his family as non-religious and fairly integrated into the North American way of life, Sam believes his coming-out would not fare too well with them. "There is so much publicity out there about homosexuality, so my parents can look at it and just find it funny," he says. "If they're watching an episode of Will & Grace they wouldn't switch the channel, they find it humorous as long as it doesn't affect them. As long as it doesn't come home, it's not a problem. I don't think they'd kill me if they found out, but they'd probably disown me. In fact, I'm pretty sure they would."

I'm a Barbie girl

Akram, whose father died 12 years ago, knew he was gay from the time he was five years old. "My aunt took me to this store, a bit like Toys'R'Us, and I just cried and cried because I wanted the bridal Barbie and not the G.I. Joe doll," he recalls.

Although the environment he lived in did not provide many explanations for the way he was feeling, his coming-out process was reasonably smooth. Apart from the verbal abuse he encountered in high school and the negative reaction from one of his two sisters, the people surrounding Akram were not surprised by his revelation.

However, he has never directly admitted his homosexuality to his mother. Just like Sam, he understands that when an issue hits close to home, it is never dealt with the same way.

"I've never told her but she knows, because mothers know these things," he says. "You know when you do something bad when you're young and you come home, you don't need to tell your mother but she just knows? My mother knows but she just doesn't want to know."

While Akram and Sam's stories about dealing with homosexuality may sound familiar to many in the gay community, their accounts seem more complex when their cultural baggage is accounted for.

"I think it is very important to contextualize social movements and sexual movements," explains Homa Hoodfar, a professor of anthropology at Concordia. "When you move something out of the West and want to transfer it there, it doesn't work. Each culture has a way of accommodating what fits into what they have defined as the mainstream."

The politics of progress

Hoodfar emphasizes that change will take time, and speculates that some may be asking for too much too fast. "If you want to make a political statement like that you have to prepare the grounds," she says. "Here in the West they had a gay movement, and then they had this demand to be socially and legally recognized," she adds. "Yes it is a problem, yes people have to think about how to deal with it, but like any other political movement, you have to strategize, make the debate, and involve people in the discussion. And then go ahead and make more bold statements."

Contrary to widely-held perceptions, the Arab world is mobilizing in the fight against intolerance regarding homosexuality. New groups such as GLAS (Gay and Lesbian Arab Society), the Al-Fatiha Foundation (an international organization dedicated to Muslims who are LGBT) and www.gayarab.org (a Web site devoted to issues effecting gay Arabs) are gaining popularity, and certainly helping Arab homosexuals express their real identity in a culture that usually frowns upon them.

Sam, the more poised of the pair I met with, agrees that change will take time. "It might take five or six generations to change, you just have to be patient about it. It's going to happen, but I don't think it's necessary to push towards change, because it's just going to aggravate people and create more sensation and more intolerance."

"It's not because my blood is Arabic that I am," says Akram. "I just don't see what I have in common with the Arabic community. Maybe in the future I'll find something, but right now I don't feel that I do." His attitude towards change in the Arab mentality, however, remains optimistic. "If change happened here, it's a possibility that it will happen there. Hopefully it'll get better."

Not wanting to sound anti-Arab, Akram rationalizes his sentiment towards his culture. "The fact that I'm gay and Arab makes it harder on me, because most people don't want to accept it. I'd rather reject them than have them reject me. It's a defence mechanism in a way. That way when they do reject me, in my head it'll be like, ‘I rejected you guys a long time ago, so I don't care that much.'"