On beg gay Lebanon: Beit nnot be Mykonos or London, and that is okay — MOSAIKOMAG

Contents:

• DISVER THE 5 MOST GAY-IENDLY ARAB UNTRI
• LEBANON GAY TRAVEL - LGBT RMATN JULY 2023
• GAY LIFE LEBANON: BOUNCE BACK BEIT
• MEET 'THE FIRST AND ONLY GAY TOUR GUI THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST'
• US WHE SUPREMACISTS FOUND GUILTY OF GAY PRI RT PLOT
• GAY BEIT
• 5 SAFT PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2019 (AND THE MOST DANGERO)
• NORTH LEBANON GAY TRAVEL
• TRAVEL SAFETY REPORT: 20 WORST PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2021
• ON BEG GAY LEBANON: BEIT NNOT BE MYKONOS OR LONDON, AND THAT IS OKAY
• GAY BERMUDA TRAVEL GUI

DISVER THE 5 MOST GAY-IENDLY ARAB UNTRI

Through a haze of shisha smoke and somewhat stiflg sexual stigma, the Arab world unveils an unexpected realm of possibili for trepid gay travellers. If you n five the state-approved homophobia and are willg to act wh discretn while out and about, the Arab untri n reem themselv a thoand and one different ways, om the ancient centre of Petra to the glterg ephets of Bahra and to the serts beyond. While by and large closeted kgdoms, the handful of gay clubs the progrsive cy of Beit n allow you to be your te self, while the luxury ternatnal hotels across the regn n ensure your privacy is rpected.

Wh so much do see and do, Mt is bt seen by tour b, allowg you to hop off at untls mms, the Sultan’s Palace and the Mutrah Corniche wateront, before venturg further afield on day trips to the beach and turtle-filled lagoons for divg and of the slightly more tolerant untri the regn, Oman is said to have once had s own gay sultan – Sultan Qaboos b Said al Said – although the state prs is quick to ny this as a pric mour!

Neverthels, the unofficial gossip is that the former sultan leads a lavish gay liftyle wh his palace, divorced om his wife and enjoyg the ocsnal English lover. In realy, the laws are rarely upheld except high-profile s, however, and gay Oman remas a perfectly safe place to | Photo: Katera KerdiPetra, particular, is the crowng glory of Jordan, protected wh sandstone cliffs and offerg an unrivalled llectn of monuments, cludg the fg Siq to the Treasury on an ethereal sert se of red rock and dun known as Wadi Rum2.

LEBANON GAY TRAVEL - LGBT RMATN JULY 2023

Now you, avid explorer of gay Arab worlds, get to see the antiqui all their majty, movg om Roman Amphheatre to Csar stle wh a samplg of early Christian art along the way. Jordan crimalised homophobia as early as 1951 and while there remas social stigma and ‘public moraly’ laws that hr LGBTQ+ eedoms, gay Jordan gas tractn thanks to s unrground gay muny (most active on Grdr! Gay Bahra legalised homosexualy 1976 though this means ltle as an LGBTQ crackdown is still force targetg those that supposedly vlate “public cency”, as Jordan.

GAY LIFE LEBANON: BOUNCE BACK BEIT

Tunisian society is viewed posively among the Arab gay muny for s LGBT progrs, as the base for anisatns such as ‘Mawjoud’ which mpaigns for LGBTQ mory rights.

On paper, Tunisian law still stat that homosexualy is illegal, yet wh an openly-gay printial ndidate recently nng and ongog activism, ’s lookg more and more likely crimalisatn will e.

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

In a strange twist, one gay marriage beme legally regnised Tunisia and though that don’t say much for society as a whole, ’s a small w for gay Tunisia.

Avoid the occurrenc and Lebanon will she, thanks to s fantastic beach rorts not far om the pal as well as s mounta vistas, ancient s and more, all urteoly attend by kdly Lebane social stigma rgs te and the ft array of Arabian gays is likely to be found onle (hello Grdr, my old iend) gay Lebanon is perhaps one of the few Arab natns where a tentative gay scene tak shape real life. As well as hostg the regn’s largt gay club, POSH, where gay Arabs and ternatnals n fally dance together whout fear of persecutn, gay Beit also hosts annual queer events such as the Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia and Beit Pri. 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’.

US WHE SUPREMACISTS FOUND GUILTY OF GAY PRI RT PLOT

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. 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.

GAY BEIT

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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

5 SAFT PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2019 (AND THE MOST DANGERO)

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. 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.

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). ”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?

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. “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. 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.

NORTH LEBANON GAY TRAVEL

”Follow Hannah on Twter: @hannahluciMore LGBT stori om the Middle East:A New Film Explor the Gay Relatnship Between an Israeli and a PaltianGay Paltians Are Beg Blackmailed Into Workg As Informants. Image source, North Country Off Grid/Youtube/via RtersImage ptn, Photos shared on social at the time allegedly showed dozens of the hate group's members beg arrted near the pri eventFive members of a whe supremacist hate group nvicted of plottg to rt at a gay pri event will spend three days jail, a urt has men and dozens other members of the Patrt Front group were arrted last June after a rint spotted them wh masks and shields gettg to a were lled and found rt gear and a smoke grena the lorry was stopped near where the North Idaho Pri Alliance was holdg an event the cy of Cor d'Alene.

In this part of the Arab world few plac offer even the relative eedom om fear and persecutn still found her - but then gay men have never walked hand hand down Hamra Street eher. Gay people n hang out together chic f, de at trendy rtrants, or dance at hip clubs whout fear of beg harassed by the police, but sexual meetg plac like bathho and cisg areas are more dangero. Yunkun Club, still known for s ternatnal crowd and unrground mic scene, did have Gutter gay dance party nights, but like so much of the gay scene the end 2014.

Mawaleh, the first and only gay magaze neighborg Syria, was published 2012 - 2015 by Sami Hamwi "a Syrian gay guy, " documentg the stggl of LGBTQ people the face of that natn's scent to hell. See Proud Lebanon for rmatn about their volunteers' work to help gay Syrian refuge Beit, often victims of torture and extortn by both sis that untry's civil war. LebTour, the LGBT travel service and tour gui, found 2005, wh adventure tours for gay men, once the bt lol rource of s kd, has closed and disappeared om the web.

TRAVEL SAFETY REPORT: 20 WORST PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2021

In an attempt to help terme the worst plac for gay travelers, the duo created the 2019 LGBTQ+ Danger Inx, rankg the world’s most dangero—and saft—untri for gay travelers. The journalists looked at the top 150 most-vised untri the world by the number of g tourists, then ranked them g eight factors, cludg laws agast gay relatnships, legal protectn agast discrimatn and more.

“In 2018, India managed to annul Sectn 377, a Brish lonial-era law prohibg ‘unnatural acts, ’ orr to legalize nsensual gay sex, ” says Fergson, who pots out that ancient Indian lerature such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana have many referenc to LGBTQ+ hero cludg transgenr warrrs and two queens who ma love orr for one queen to get pregnant wh an heir for their kgdom. “We found this to be a b ironic as the reason for many of the harsh homophobic laws untri throughout the world is largely leftover om laws created durg Brish le, ” says Fergson. Ci like Lisbon and Porto have the bt gay scen the untry and Portugal is hopg to host the 2022 Europri, the world's biggt event celebratg gay pri Europe.

Wh an overall natnal attu that is relaxed and acceptg towards homosexualy, Belgium is known for havg a vibrant gay and lbian scene, particularly Bssels, ” says Fergson.

ON BEG GAY LEBANON: BEIT NNOT BE MYKONOS OR LONDON, AND THAT IS OKAY

It was ranked so highly largely due to the extreme penalti for simply beg gay, which clu up to 14 years prison and the ath penalty stat unr Sharia law, ” says Fergson.

GAY BERMUDA TRAVEL GUI

“Sdi Arabia is another of the untri on our list which implements the ath penalty for nsensual homosexualy unr their terpretatn of Sharia law, ” says Fergson. “Iran ma #6 on the x, due part to s extreme punishments for homosexualy, which clu 100 lash for homosexual terurse or the ath penalty, and 31 lash for same-sex acts other than terurse, ” says Fergson.

“Publicly, homosexualy is a taboo topic, so LGBTQ+ travelers choosg to vis Sudan should proceed wh utn and rema discreet wh regards to their sexualy. “Historilly, Barbados and some other Caribbean islands have had poor anti-LGBTQ+ legislatn and practic, largely left over om the Brish occupatn which put the laws place and rerced anti-gay attus.