?

I thought that when I came to Lebanon, I would stumble on demonstrations and protests and people in the streets screaming for political change.  After all, it's March and the two main movements here began in March and are named for the month that shuts the door on winter and unlocks another to let in spring's possibilities and new life. 

I'm sitting in the grand foyer of the Port View hotel, looking out the window onto the Port and Lebanon's electricity building.  It's overcast, windy, cold and wet outside and it's very quiet at 10am, I'm assuming most people are still sleeping off the previous night's debauchery.  My head feels like the sky today, cloudy and indecisive. Will it rain or will the cloud's part and let in the sun's light -- will I keep plodding forward, gathering sound and talking to random people, or will I find an angle to a story that I didn't see before, illuminating a path I couldn't find in the dark? 

I'm interested in interviewing young, gay and trans gendered people in Lebanon, its an issue that's been ignored, mostly, I've found out, because people don't want to talk candidly about their experiences.  They could be thrown in jail, beaten, and there's the threat of death in the form of "honor killings." 

Yesterday I went to the only gay support organization in the Middle East, called Helem (helem means dream in Arabic).  I interviewed Bilal, a 23 year old gay man, who works there and is "out" to his friends and sisters.  There is a very open gay scene in Lebanon, and there are popular nightclubs that cater to the gay community, but family honor plays a huge role in a majority of gay men and women leading double lives.  Many gay men have girlfriends and families in order to save face and not destroy their family's reputation.  Bilal told me it's even harder for Lesbians because sex with a man before marriage is taboo, so imagine admitting to having sex, first off, and then having same sex, sex.  I also spoke with another young man who believes he's trapped in a woman's body.  He too is named Bilal.  In the Koran, Bilal is the name of the first person who prayed to Allah.  Both Bilal's are Shia, one is gay and the other is trans gendered.  Bilal from Helem, who's openly gay, says he's a devout Muslim, he prays and he has sex with his Christian boyfriend.  He told me that he did not choose to be gay, and sex for a man is not taboo, so he is doing nothing wrong...he can be gay and be Muslim at the same time. 

Trans gendered Bilal is much more conservative and he too, says he's a devout Muslim.  He lives his life as a woman, but is obviously a man. When I met him he was wearing tight jeans, a long sleeved shirt, his long, dyed red hair back in a chignon, a 5 o'clock shadow covered most of his face. He does not have sex with men and will not until he is able to change his sex and marry.  Sex before marriage for a woman is "haram"/forbidden and because Bilal feels he is a woman, he will not engage in sexual acts.  Bilal is living in a very unique prison here in Beirut.  His 5 brothers treat him like their sister, he cooks and cleans and takes care of their children, but they beat him and call him a freak and he's afraid to leave the house for fear he'll dishonor his family name or worse, be raped and killed.  This Bilal can't go to weddings because he can't sit with the men nor the women, he doesn't go to funerals for the same reason, he refuses to attend mosque because he has no place to pray, all he wants is a sex change so that he can free himself from this prison and live. 

Trans gendered Bilal says HE'S NOT GAY and doesn't want to be thought as such, to be gay is HARAM and he is a woman trapped in a man's body.  Gay Bilal says he thinks it might be easier to be trans gendered/because if society sees you as a woman, you can have an outwardly normal "male/female" relationship.  It's all about appearances.

__________________________________________________________ 

((((An interesting side point...trans gendered Bilal saw TEDDY's (the dancer, I mentioned in the previous post) interview on TV and said that what he was doing was against God, dancing around in a bra at nightclubs.  He thinks TEDDY is disrespectful and shouldn't be prancing around like a homosexual on television.  ))))

__________________________________________________________

One thing that I continue to learn, again and again, is that Lebanon is the most confusing place on earth!  You can be a Christian, anti-Syrian and support Hezbollah.  You can be a gay, have sex with your Christian boyfriend and be a devout Muslim.  You can be a cross-dressing man who has sexual feelings for other men and look down on the gay lifestyle as HARAM. This country is amazingly complex.  Now I know why journalists tend to boil things down to Sunni vs. Shia sectarian divisions, to tell the real story would mean WORKING until your brain feels like it's going to explode...having hour long talks with random people, drinking 1,000s of cups of nescafe.  And even if you do all of that your hands might be too shaky from the caffeine high to write anything that an American audience can digest. 

One theme:  All the young people I've spoken to have said the same thing, THEY WANT TO LIVE...they just want to live their lives and have a future in this beautiful country.

I love Lebanon/I hate Lebanon/love/hate/love/hate....love?

Comments

[pavao]

well...there you have it the unexpainable is what drives us, what forces us to discover, what will either bring us together, pit us against each other, or separate us for eternity...eventually....keep asking all those questions, that is what makes you shereen, bruxinha, crazy, restless...stubborn, always searching.

[Akemi Rico]

I think so many things in life are like that.... There is never a simple explanation, but somehow it makes things just easier to digest when someone can simplify it. There's more to every story...

[Amy]

don't go...

[moinho]

I think you're starting to get the picture... and feel it.
Good work grasshopper, and welcome to the real Lebanon.
May you always avoid simplification and generalization, and use your mind and feeling to find the truth...
Salam!