Our gay gui to Beit, Lebanon, featurg gay-iendly hotels, gay bars and travel rmatn.
Contents:
- GAY BEIT
- EVERYONE IS WELE: THE ONLY GAY HANGOUT THE ARAB WORLD
- GAY BEIT
- GAY BEIT
- MEET 'THE FIRST AND ONLY GAY TOUR GUI THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST'
- GAY-REISEN LIBANON: SCHWUL LEBEN BEIT (INTERVIEW)
GAY BEIT
Beit gay tourism: At you n fd the rmatn you need for your vatns Beit. * beirut gay hammam *
Everyone is, a study bathed by the afternoon sunshe, Wael Hse, a 24-year-old gay man, is chattg wh Naya, a transgenr woman, ahead of Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOTB) on Thursday. ”Compared wh other untri the Middle East, such as Iran where homosexualy is punishable by ath, Lebanon has a relatively thrivg LGBT muny.
”Sce then Helem’s reputatn has spread beyond Lebanon throughout the Arab world and several siar anisatns have been set up, cludg the NGO Shams Tunisia, fightg for the crimalisatn of homosexualy. He ed to be the manager of Bardo, Beit’s most famo gay bar, before jog Helem, an experience he says has opened his ey to the discrimatn faced by those om prived social backgrounds. Venue Dcriptn: not "gay, " olst Beit hammam, soap & oil massag.
EVERYONE IS WELE: THE ONLY GAY HANGOUT THE ARAB WORLD
Beit gay tourism: At you n fd the rmatn you need for your vatns Beit. * beirut gay hammam *
> Gay Lebanon Gay BeitBeit is home to an ever-growg gay scene. Outsi of Israel, Lebanon is the most gay-iendly untry the Middle East. Although homosexualy is theoretilly illegal, the penal law is rarely ed.
Gay travelers Beit shouldn't face any difficulti, but public displays of affectn are ill-advised. “There were eight or ne hammams [Turkish baths] the Old Cy, and four or five of those were gay. And when I say gay, they were, like, so 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?
GAY BEIT
* beirut gay hammam *
Bertho beme the Arab world’s first and only gay holiday rep 2005. He asked a iend to resign his webse wh a "gay iendly image", and that's how his pany, Lebtour, was born.
“If I was gog to do gay tours to Barcelona I’d have so much petn, ” he says.
GAY BEIT
Hardle Islamists are makg thgs tricky for Bertho's gay tours of the Arab world. * beirut gay hammam *
“All the gay people go on holiday there.
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. 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.
MEET 'THE FIRST AND ONLY GAY TOUR GUI THE ARAB MIDDLE EAST'
Gay bathho (or ‘snas’) are well rooted Wtern gay culture and many large ci of the world. Beit don’t have any gay snas worthy of the name, however history left GiBs wh a somewhat siar thg: the Hammam’s (aka Turkish baths). It ed to be that the public baths played a social… * beirut gay hammam *
“Most gay tourists who e for the first time say that they’re not expectg this, ” he says. “We’d go on tours of the hammams Aleppo, and Damasc was a paradise for gay people.
And he started lghg bee was so clear that there were no women and that we were a group of gay men. ”I n’t que believe that uld have been so easy, so I ask him if he's openly gay. 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.
But Hezbollah don't re whether you are gay or straight, bee, for them, ’s all about Israel.
GAY-REISEN LIBANON: SCHWUL LEBEN BEIT (INTERVIEW)
Schwul Leben im Libanon: E homosexueller Mann s Beit gibt mir die bten Tipps für Gays seem Land. Hier len! * beirut gay hammam *
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. Next week I’m takg a gay scuba divg group there.