Nora Norella

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Anti-LGBTQ+ extremism isn’t limited to just the United States. Here’s how to beat them worldwide

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While LGBTQ+ Americans have been subjected to numerous legislative attacks by Republican politicians recently, being queer is also a challenge in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as most countries enact laws and policies that criminalize, stigmatize, and discriminate against queer people. 

However, laws and policies are not the only problems, as being anti-LGBTQ+ has become an integral part of the cultural identity of many people in the MENA region. Like the American far-right, hating queer people has become a badge of honor.

Between 2018 and 2019, the Arab Barometer surveyed six MENA countries asking, “Is homosexuality an acceptable practice?” The highest country answering “yes” was Algeria at only 27%, with the rest ranging from 5% to 20%.

The country’s election is only a few days away – and it’s becoming pretty intense. 

In recent years, MENA countries have been working on increasing this social discontent against queer people by detaching LGBTQ+ rights from the human rights discourse by framing it as a cultural issue. By doing so, those countries hope to absolve themselves from their human rights obligations towards their queer populations. While human rights are not negotiable, culture is relevant and diverse and must be respected. 

The patriarchs of this framing always claim that fundamental human rights are protected for all, saying they do not promote violence or discrimination against LGBTQ+ people; instead, they only safeguard their societies’ cultural values. In this cultural framing, queer identities are labeled as part of a “Western agenda” that corrupts the region’s youth and introduces foreign concepts to MENA societies. 

In 2022, this framing and narrative evolved to co-opt decolonization’s terminologies, as LGBTQ+ people are now considered part of a cultural battle between the West and MENA countries, where “the white man” is culturally colonizing the MENA societies with “ideology.”

In 2022, MENA countries banned several movies depicting queer characters, such as Disney’s Lightyear because it had a brief lesbian kiss. Banning LGBTQ+ films is not new for the region, but authorities used to ban movies without much social notice. This time, there was a massive social outcry. Like in other global anti-LGBTQ+ narratives, this outcry focused on protecting children from the corrupt queer ideology, as Disney’s movies are mainly viewed by children. Other countries like Saudi Arabia also banned “rainbow toys,” fearing it would influence the children to be LGBTQ+.

The uproar around Lightyear resulted in “Fetrah,” an anti-LGBTQ+ social media campaign that originated in Egypt to defend Middle Eastern culture and tradition from Western invasion. Before being banned on Facebook for promoting hate speech, the movement gained millions of followers across the MENA region. The campaign still operates on other social media platforms, and its ideology is prevalent among the people. The social pressure forced Disney to issue a statement vowing not to show any LGBTQ+ content in MENA countries.

Later, several countries issued policies to combat “Western LGBTQ+ ideology” in schools. 

In Egypt, the Ministry of Education issued a general directive to “combat the promotion of homosexuality and its ideas in different media outlets,” instructing officials to implement anti-LGBTQ+ awareness campaigns in schools to protect the children and youth from this Western agenda. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Ministry of Education issued a new code of conduct prohibiting “discussing gender identity, homosexuality or any other behavior deemed unacceptable to UAE society.” In Morocco, the Ministry of Education investigated and issued disciplinary actions against officials after the word “sexual orientation” appeared in textbooks.

Authorities also support or incite anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments to distract the public from their social, economic, and political failures. 

In Lebanon, where an economic and political crisis is ongoing, “Soldiers of God,” a right-wing Christian group, destroyed a rainbow billboard and vowed to attack any queer persons they could identify. The Lebanese authorities decided to ban all events promoting “LGBTQ+ ideology”, siding with the aggressors. In Iraq, another country with an ongoing crisis, several MPs and political leaders tried to distract the public by introducing new laws that criminalize homosexuality. Those attempts are happening both on the federal level and in the autonomous region of Kurdistan.

Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments skyrocketed before, during, and after Qatar’s World Cup. 

The region’s anti-LGBTQ+ actors benefited greatly from the ill-informed discussion around LGBTQ+ people at the event, as the conversation was characterized by Western-centric performative activism and unprofessional and sometimes outright racist coverage by Western media. This discussion enforced the ongoing narrative that queer rights are a cultural ideology the West is trying to force on MENA countries, which harms the region’s LGBTQ+ people the most.

The year ended with Kuwait and Iraq being the first two countries to directly respond to the World Cup’s LGBTQ+ discussions. In Kuwait, authorities launched a nationwide anti-LGBTQ+ campaign. They later announced they had deported 3000 ex-pats for being transgender or crossdressing in 2022, despite the Supreme Court decriminalizing such acts earlier that year. In Iraq, a prominent Shita cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, called on his supporters to unite against corrupt queer ideology.  

Not even a month into 2023, several anti-LGBTQ+ incidents have already occured. In Algeria, the Ministry of Commerce announced it would ban all rainbow-colored products to “protect society from homosexuality.” In Lebanon, despite removing the ban on queer events, news emerged of rogue members of the security agencies extorting LGBTQ+ people, hunting them online and offline, and requesting a bribe or else they would arrest them.

Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments will likely continue to rise in the region, with anti-queer figures dominating public speech and mobilizing the cultural framing of LGBTQ+ issues in their favor. 

Anti-LGBTQ+ actors seem to have been successful in their goals for now, as LGBTQ+ identities are viewed by a large portion of the MENA societies as an evil corrupt Western ideology. The region’s anti-LGBTQ+ actors are an active part of the global anti-LGBTQ+ rights movement, as seen in the similarities in their discourse. Both capitalize on conspiracy theories feeding into a public moral panic that there is an LGBTQ+ cult attempting to recruit children into their ideology.

As anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments continue to grow, it reflects the need for new advocacy strategies for LGBTQ+ rights in the region. 

Some activists have already criticized the current strategies for being overly Western and called for reform based on critical analysis of the region’s context to produce more applicable strategies. Others point out that the region’s LGBTQ+ movement is still relatively new and only emerged in the past twenty years and needs more support to grow to combat the region’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. 

According to the Global Philanthropy Project (GPP), a philanthropy group that monitors global LGBTQ+ funding, the MENA region was the least funded globally at only $8.7 million annually in 2020. For comparison, this is the same price of one unit of an M1 Abrams tank, of which the US sold thousands, to MENA countries. 

What LGBTQ+ people in the region need is a mix of reformed strategies and increased support to assist them with combating the ever-increasing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments in their countries. That’s what American LGBTQ+ people need too.

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A Discriminatory System Killed a Transgender Man in Egypt

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August 26 should have been a day of celebration for Ezz Eldin, a 26-year-old transgender man, but it ended in tragedy. He bled to death after he was prematurely discharged following a gender-affirmation surgery in an underground clinic, transgender activists told Human Rights Watch.

Ezz Eldin, who also went by Ahmed Fares, need not have died, and what should have been a life-affirming surgery instead became a life-threatening procedure in an unauthorized clinic. A dysfunctional, discriminatory system left him with no surgical alternative. This is the situation for transgender people in Egypt who are denied access to appropriate health care under a government that discriminates against them and withholds legal gender recognition. 

His desperate attempts to get the care he needed arose, in part, due to discord between religious and medical authorities. The impasse originated almost two decades ago and revolves around the extent at which religious authorities should have a say in medical matters. It is based on a fatwa, or religious edict, that permitted medical intervention only for intersex people, who are born with characteristics that vary from what is considered typical for female or male bodies. 

Transgender individuals, whose gender differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, were disqualified. This confusing, contradictory, and discriminatory policy has left transgender people in Egypt with very few choices—if they want surgery, unregulated and often unsafe clinics are the only options. 

In 2003, Egypt’s Health Ministry established a review committee within the Medical Syndicate for people wanting “sex reassignment surgery.” However, the volunteer committee met irregularly, had no legal authority, and was required to include a representative from Egypt’s Islamic oversight body, Dar Al Ifta.

This led to the anomalous situation of a religious authority participating in medical policy, based on their understanding of religion, not science. In accordance with the fatwa, Dar Al Ifta drew a distinction between “sex change,” referring to gender affirming surgery for transgender people, and “sex reassignment,” referring to surgery for people with intersex characteristics. 

Medical authorities were reluctant to refer transgender patients to surgery, out of deference for their religious counterparts. In 2003, the Medical Syndicate amended the Medical Code of Ethics to ban doctors from performing surgery on transgender patients to further please the religious authorities, who believed that sex reassigment sugries should only be allowed for intersex indvidiuals. 

Doctors who perform such surgery risk a professional liability, and legal repercussions under article 244 of Egypt’s Penal Code. In several documented cases, prosecutors and judges  punished doctors who had performed these operations under the guise of causing a “permanent disability” to transgender patients. This caused a spike in the cost of gender-affirming care, as fewer doctors were willing to take this risk. According to several transgender people we talked to, gender-affirming surgeries could cost anywhere from 7,000 EGP (445 USD) to 25,000 EGP (1,560 USD).

Notwithstanding these barriers, the Medical Syndicate indicated in 2013 that it was willing to consider individual transgender applicants under certain onerous conditions, including two years of psychiatric observation. This was to demonstrate to the religious authorities that the applicant tried to resolve the issue through psychiatric treatment but to no effect. But even this narrow window was closed under pressure from Dar Al Ifta in 2014.

In 2017, religious and medical representatives appeared to have resolved their differences by agreeing that the religious authorities would have the final say. However, the committee remained so dysfunctional that it asked the government to dissolve it and transfer responsibility for handling cases to the Health Ministry or Justice Ministry. 

In a landmark 2016 case, a transgender man requested legal gender recognition from the state, but an administrative court denied his request, based on the aforementioned fatwa, and after the Forensic Medical Authority said that “the plaintiff underwent a sex change operation and not a sex reassignment one.” Thus, the plaintiff violated the Shari’a principles, which only allows surgeries for intersex individuals. 

The court added that parliament should “issue laws to regulate the matter and to clear the confusion about the process, on the condition that the new laws would be compatible with Islamic Shari’a.” and that “the medical syndicate is a body only responsible to look after the welfare of its members and is not in a position to review requests for sex reassignment surgeries.” 

This ruling highlighted the negative impact of having religious authorities  determine the health care needs of transgender people, a task for which they are wholly unqualified.

The lack of access to health care for transgender people gave rise to an underground medical business that is dangerous and expensive, with unsupervised treatment in unlicensed centers, without avenues for accountability. Many transgender people in Egypt who want surgery are left with no choice but to take this risk.

Ezz Eldin could have received the care he needed had the Egyptian authorities remedied this systemic failure and established an administrative procedure that facilitates transgender people’s access to gender affirming medical care.

Egypt’s legislative and executive branches should carry out urgent reforms to create a legal gender recognition system recognized by all government departments. The Medical Syndicate should rescind its ban on surgery for transgender people, and religious bodies, such as Dar Al-Ifta, should end their interference in medical matters. Medical school curricula should also be changed to include medical training for gender affirming procedures. 

The legal and medical systems should be modeled to meet Egypt’s international human rights obligations, as a state party, to treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 

By reforming its own system, Egypt can influence positive changes in other countries in the region, due to its geopolitical and cultural importance. Egypt should lead the way and establish clear and accessible legal gender recognition mechanisms, as well as allow access to gender affirming healthcare for transgender people modeled on one’s right to self-identification.