For Beit's gay muny, chemil blast shattered a safe space

Contents:

• GAY BARS BEIT - BEIT FOM
• GAY LIFE LEBANON: BOUNCE BACK BEIT
• GAY BAR BEIT
• FOR BEIT'S GAY MUNY, CHEMIL BLAST SHATTERED A SAFE SPACE
• MEET 'THE FIRST AND ONLY GAY TOUR GUI THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST'
• BARS & CLUBS GAY BEIT
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• BEIRUT GAY BARS
• GAY BARS & CLUBS - BEIT FOM
• GAY BEIT - BEIT FOM
• DO ANYONE KNOW OF GAY IENDLY BARS EAST BEIT - BEIT FOM
• OASIS OF TOLERANCE OR 'REPUBLIC OF SHAME'? TWO FAC OF GAY LIFE BEIT
• GAY BEIT
• BEIT GAY MAP

GAY BARS BEIT - BEIT FOM

I was tryg to set up a walkg tour wh a gay travel se Beit and got an ial quiry of tert to help, but they have failed to rpond to all my follow up emails. Beit’s world fame for war is fally beg overshadowed by s emergg reputatn as the (gay) party pal of the Middle East.

The New York Tim’ travel sectn emed the cy the ‘number one place to vis 2009’, and, another article, raved about the cy’s thrivg gay scene, dubbg ‘The Provcetown of the Middle East’. Acrdg to Ghassan Makarem, executive director of Helem Lebanon’s gay rights anisatn (the first and only of s kd the Arab world), the ernment don’t object to this image. At the cy’s two ma gay clubs, Milk and Acid, a mix of Lebane, Syrian, Jordanian, Kuwai and even some Iraqi men disprove any remag theory of cultural relativism.

That is to say, once si people don’t behave differently om any other gay club the world – wh the possible exceptn of the ocsnal male belly dance.

GAY LIFE LEBANON: BOUNCE BACK BEIT

But acrdg to Bertho Makso of Lebtour, a Beit-based travel agent that promot gay tourism to Lebanon and anis very popular Bear Arabia events, that is exactly what his clients are lookg for. On a stroll across the universy grounds he explaed that the ‘gay’ song our mutual iend referred to, Shem el Yasme (Smell the Jasme), plays wh a tradnal property of Arabic poetry and lyrics: love is always directed to a man. Hamed Sno, the charismatic lead sger of the band, is of a rare speci: a publicly out gay man Lebanon.

Some prits are unhappy wh the official stance of the Catholic Church and have ved Helem to talk about the issue of homosexualy to their ngregatns. Many prenceived, Wtern ias about polil and relig attus toward homosexualy prove rather els Lebanon. One rehg surprise is that Al-Akhbar, a newspaper that is half owned by Hezbollah, has ma homosexualy part of s reportg agenda and wr que posively about the issue.

GAY BAR BEIT

Another surprise reveals what is, acrdg to Makarem, a ser mistake on the part of the Wtern media: the assumptn that pro-Wtern polil parti are pro-gay. “The New York Tim, which is supposed to be a ser newspaper, ran an article on gay nightlife that claimed some thgs that were absolutely ridiculo.

FOR BEIT'S GAY MUNY, CHEMIL BLAST SHATTERED A SAFE SPACE

For stance, nclud that bee a pro-Wtern majory was elected, that would be a good thg for gays Lebanon. This was nsistent wh stori of a large flux of gay men om Dahiyeh the cy’s gay bars and clubs, and the experience of a woman who told me she got ls flack for wearg a miskirt Dahiyeh than the smopolan shoppg street of Hamra, where the men would ‘accintally’ bump to her and stare at her cht. What was even more remarkable to me – g om a part of the world where Mlims are generally perceived as the most nservative and homophobic group society – was that a lot of people seemed to agree that Mlims Lebanon were more open to discsg homosexualy on the street (albe never the media) than Christians.

MEET 'THE FIRST AND ONLY GAY TOUR GUI THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST'

Havg said that, when I ntacted the admistrators of the Facebook group lled ‘Gays of Dahiyeh’, took a que a b of persuasn to get them to talk to me.

Whoever was I talked to, before he signed off he told me that the past few years thgs had changed a lot Dahiyeh and that there had been an enormo crease visible homosexualy the neighbourhood – he claimed that some 30% of the men were now gay.

But whether he was jt scramblg back to the closet or not; the gay sex he reportedly admted to unr terrogatn had never been the issue. The same people anise very popular Bear Arabia-events twice a year: check They’re very knowledgeable and fun and have big plans for Beit: the owner Bertho Makso exprsed his visn to anise a (gay) love pri para the near future.

BARS & CLUBS GAY BEIT

The Gefor Rotana is one of the most nveniently loted hotels Beit, wh walkg distance om the Corniche (the seasi promena) and s beach clubs, the shops and rtrants of Rue Hamra and Downtown Beit, and some of the most popular gay-iendly plac town. If you vis only one gay-iendly place Beit, let be Bardo, across om the Haigazian Universy Hamra. Other plac to check out: Behd the Green Door (porn spired bar Gemmayzeh); Barometre (very atmospheric, very tellectual leftist Arab bar near the Amerin universy Hamra – great cheap food, too, and Acid (somewhat tacky, but still… you n’t miss the biggt gay club the Middle East).

It drew 400 people and ran for hours as dozens of young Beitis, cludg Hamed Sno, lead sger of the ternatnally succsful Mashrou Leila, stood up to tell their g-out Grand FactoryThe gay sger and dancer Moe Khansa is big news, too: at the Beit Art Fair an Iranian artist’s portra of him embracg another man sold for $8, 000. Bar/rtrant Bardo, central Hamra, has tablished self as the epicentre of the gay scene, and is one of the cy’s bt-regard spots of any kd. In a Gay Bar Beit, there are offered all kds of cktails and drks, if you feel like gog out enter our web to obta the clost to more recently, bisexual clubs & events are ually advertised by handg out eye-tchg flyers on street, iendly shops & venu, clubs and events.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

Typil mic played at gay clubs clu pop, dance, ntemporary R&B, property, trance & technoIf you like electronic mic and you want go out this weekend, you n vis a Gay Bar Beit which plays this kd of mic, search our web se to fd the ial place for you.

“My parents are super relig, so my mom had this nversatn wh me where she was like, ‘Ah, you n’t stay here bee my relign wouldn’t allow me to keep you here, bee you’re gay, bee you do a lot of thgs that we n’t accept, ’” he said.

BEIRUT GAY BARS

“It hurt way more knowg wh everythg that happened Beit, you still … have to leave home bee you’re gay, ” he said. ’”The Arab world’s progrsive enclaveLebanon is nsired relatively liberal the Arab world, even though remas one of the approximately 70 untri around the globe that still crimaliz homosexualy.

GAY BARS & CLUBS - BEIT FOM

Vol advot the ty Mederranean untry fend LGBTQ rights, and gay bars and clubs are allowed to operate. And while s volvg homosexualy still go to trial om time to time the untry, an 80-year old article the penal prosecutg homosexual relatns has been unrmed recent years by a succsful mpaign waged by activist lawyers to obta liberal judicial lgs, which have ma creasgly difficult to crimalize same-sex 2017, a judge Lebanon led for the first time that homosexualy is not a crime, so long as is not public, wh a mor or unr ercn.

GAY BEIT - BEIT FOM

“When you want to look at Lebanon as a whole, at least om a personal queer perspective, you have to separate Beit om the rt of at least terms of tolerance, ” Sandra Melhem, an LGBTQ activist and owner of Beit gay club Ego, lled the neighborhoods of Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh hubs for the cy’s queer muny and slammed ernment officials for storg nearly 3, 000 tons of highly explosive ammonium nrate the heart of the nsely populated pal cy for years. She said the sire to help overme a former lack of hn among different groups wh the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer muny. “We’re enterg areas I would never have sent the boys to if they looked very flamboyantly gay.

DO ANYONE KNOW OF GAY IENDLY BARS EAST BEIT - BEIT FOM

“There were eight or ne hammams [Turkish baths] the Old Cy, and four or five of those were gay. ”His Aleppo is a liberal wonrland, a place where men n get on wh other men the public baths and a gay tour group n rent out a whole hotel wh no problems.

And this is jt the latt example of how his work, like me, is always domated by polics, bee how n be otherwise when he is a gay man takg groups of other gay men on tours around the Middle East? He asked a iend to resign his webse wh a "gay iendly image", and that's how his pany, Lebtour, was born. After all, the Middle East is not a regn wh a reputatn for beg particularly open towards homosexualy.

In most Arab untri, beg actively gay is still punishable by law, even if, practice, the thori are unlikely to prosecute.

OASIS OF TOLERANCE OR 'REPUBLIC OF SHAME'? TWO FAC OF GAY LIFE BEIT

In Lebanon the law prohibs "abnormal sex", but many people – pecially smopolan Beit – are openly gay. And yet, even Lebanon, homosexuals are perdilly arrted and gay bars ocsnally, and arbrarily, shut down. And he started lghg bee was so clear that there were no women and that we were a group of gay men.

GAY BEIT

In the photo a group of men stand Lebanon’s Baalbek, gathered behd an adaptn of the gay pri flag that's embellished wh a paw prt.

It’s the only untry the Arab world where homosexualy is unambiguoly legal, but he tells me, spe that, s social norms make a ls tolerant place than both Lebanon and Syria. “There’s only one fé there that's gay-owned, but I’ve never even felt that that is a gay place, ” he says. “Bad vers worse, ” as Bertho puts the hundreds of thoands of Syrians who have fled to Lebanon to pe the nflict are gay men who have watched their once tolerant untry cmble around them.

He tells me that he has met men who have been arrted, beaten and raped before managg to make their pe – and all bee they are gay.

BEIT GAY MAP

When we meet he has jt returned om a rearch trip there to spe out the gay-iendly plac he n take his tour groups to.

Egypt’s laws on homosexualy are far more dranian than Lebanon’s; there you n end up jail, beg forcefully admistered wh hormone jectns, if you are disvered to be actively gay and the thori ci that you need "curg" he also sensed a new revolutnary mood the air. ” Maybe Egypt is changg; maybe gay tours will be possible there there are plac that Bertho sists he will never go.