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

Contents:

• GAY BARS BEIT - BEIT FOM
• DISVER THE 5 MOST GAY-IENDLY ARAB UNTRI
• OUTRAGED LEBANE MAND END TO ANAL EXAMS ON GAY MEN
• EVERYONE IS WELE: THE ONLY GAY HANGOUT THE ARAB WORLD
• GAY BARS & CLUBS - BEIT FOM
• FOR BEIT'S GAY MUNY, CHEMIL BLAST SHATTERED A SAFE SPACE
• GAY LEBANON
• BEIT GAY MAP
• BEIT GAY BARS

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.

‘Ghost’, a gay-iendly club Dekwaneh, Matn, Lebanon, was raid by 12 policemen unr the orr of Antoe Chakhtoura, the municipaly's head. Another one of the victims, a Syrian gay man, was terviewed by the Lebane Broadstg Corporatn (LBC) the followg footage released by Raynbow Lebanon on YouTube.

DISVER THE 5 MOST GAY-IENDLY ARAB UNTRI

Hasan Abssamad jokgly begged France to ‘re-lonize’ Lebanon, cg the ntrast between the French mandate-era law nmng sexual relatns that are “ntradictg the laws of nature” (Article 534 of the Lebane Penal Co) and France's recent legalizatn of Gay marriage:. @JoSamuelAoun: I admire when homophob start their homophobic phrase wh “Wh all my rpect to those people and to human rights” #LebLGBT. 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. 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.

OUTRAGED LEBANE MAND END TO ANAL EXAMS ON GAY MEN

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.

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.

EVERYONE IS WELE: THE ONLY GAY HANGOUT THE ARAB WORLD

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. 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. Image ptn, The police raid on the CePlaza cema Beit me after a TV reportGay-rights activists Lebanon are llg on the thori to stop performg anal examatns on men spected of havg "sexual terurse ntrary to nature".

It started wh a raid by police on a cema one of the poort districts of Beit, followg claims on a televisn show that was a "gay hoe". On Facebook and Twter and by email, many Lebane shared clips om the troductn of the bullet - an ditn of the shock ed by the the first time, was not only gay-rights activists who were batg and nmng the practice but mastream society.

GAY BARS & CLUBS - BEIT FOM

"The memorandum is vaguely wrten but appears to ll for rtrat the applitn of the move was met wh a great al of scepticism by the untry's gay muny, which mands nothg ls than a total ban of the tts. (Beit) – Lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) people and their rights  Lebanon are part and parcel of the natnwi protts that began on October 17, 2019, Human Rights Watch said today a web feature.

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.

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

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. “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.

’”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. 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. “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.

In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture.

GAY LEBANON

He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor.

BEIT GAY MAP

“Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak.

BEIT GAY BARS

In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek.

” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian.

Sr of gay men — most of them “bears, ” a term ed the world over for heavyset, hairy guys ually olr than 30 — were g om across Lebanon and the Arab world, as well as Argenta, Italy, Mexi, the Uned Stat and elsewhere. In his 40s, wearg a whe T-shirt and khaki shorts, Roberto said he was surprised by the br of Beit pared wh gay life Rome, and said he was gog to spread the word back home. ”While homosexual activy (technilly, sexual relatns that officials em “unnatural”) is illegal Lebanon, as most of the Arab world, Beit’s valy as a Mederranean pal of night life has fueled a flourishg gay scene — albe one where men n be nervo about public displays of affectn and where secury guards at clubs n terce if the good tim turn too isky on the dance floor.