LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of

Homosexuality 1

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East:

How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of Homosexuality
Kaytlynn A. Hinson
Global Connections A-3
The Global Studies and World Languages Academy at
Tallwood High School
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 2

Abstract

This paper explores the Middle Eastern ideals of sexuality, how rigid social hierarchies

shape the view of LGBT+ people, and the concepts of homosexuality and transgender. Using an

array of articles, the Quran, the Bible, and a podcast, this paper analyzes the Islamic and

Middle Eastern ideals and values to better explain why LGBT+ people are persecuted, and how

lack of understanding leads to hostility and hatred.

Limitations

Possible limitations of this research paper include: time constraints, personal biases, and

access to information. These limitations may distort the credibility of the information presented

in this paper if not properly addressed.

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 3

Due to time constraints, I did not have time to initiate my own research on the topic of

LGBT+ rights in the Middle East, and had to rely on others research of the topic.

As a member of the LGBT+ community, I have a personal bias in favor of LGBT+

rights and equality. My political views are also very liberal, so I have bias in supporting LGBT+

rights. In addition, I am an atheist who was raised in a Christian household, so I do not have

much knowledge about the Islamic faith and culture aside from what I have read in my research

and what I have talked about at school. Also, as a female, I have a bias against patriarchal

societies since they place women beneath men on the power spectrum.

Since I am a 17-year-old American high school student, I do not have the time or funds

required to physically go to the Middle East and conduct my own research, so my access to

information is limited to what I can find online or in local libraries. Also, since so much

information is restricted in the Middle East, it is difficult to find information about LGBT+

activism, so I may not have found all the information available.

Literature Review

The sources used for this paper include online articles, a podcast, the Bible, and the

Quran. These sources assisted my efforts in forming an argument for LGBT+ rights across the

globe, and opened my mind to understand how and why the LGBT+ community is perceived in

such a negative light in the Middle East.

The articles cover a variety of concepts and ideals: LGBT+ criminalization in the

Middle East, what the Quran says about homosexuality and how it relates to the Christian view

of homosexuality, how the rigid patriarchy of the Middle East shapes their view of

homosexuality and the LGBT+ community as a whole, and the specific laws of the countries
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 4

that criminalize homosexuality. Certain articles, such as Everything you need to know about

being gay in Muslim countries by Brian Whitaker (2016) and Power and Sexuality in the

Middle East by Bruce Dunne (1998), thoroughly explained how the rigid patriarchy of the

Middle East shapes the view of homosexuality, specifically male homosexuality, as lesbianism

goes largely ignored, in regards to criminalization. These articles in-depth insight into the

Middle Easts view points on the LGBT+ community greatly assisted me in my efforts to form

an articulate response to the suppression and persecution of LGBT+ people.

The LGBT activist organization OutRight Action International provided the podcast,

TalkStory: Focus on LGBT Persons Under ISIS and in Iraq, which was recorded from the

City University of New York School of Law discussion, "When Coming Out Is a Death

Sentence: Policy Strategies to Address the Persecution of Women & LGBT Persons Under ISIS

and in Iraq. It addresses the struggles of women and LGBT+ youth in the Middle East,

specifically Iraq, whether it is an international responsibility or the responsibility of the country

itself, and possible solutions to these issues. The podcast included six speakers, featuring LGBT

rights activist and founder of IraQueer, Amir Ashour. The podcast is about 75 minutes long, and

addresses a wide array of issues with women and LGBT+ persons in Iraq, and what efforts are

being made to alleviate these issues.

The Bible is referenced in the paper because of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the

book of Genesis. The story is the same in both the Quran and the Bible, and it is what both the

Christian and Islamic faiths base their views of homosexuality. The Islamic and Christian faiths

are similar in that they are both Abrahamic religions, and the core belief that there is only one

God is the same. They agree on other views as well, one of those being that homosexuality is

wrong, and that belief stems from this story.

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 5

The Quran is also used as well as the Hadith, which are the thousands of stories

reporting the words and deeds of the prophet Muhammad.

Introduction

On Monday, April 25, 2016, Xulhaz Mannan, a US Embassy worker and LGBT rights

activist, was murdered in his mothers apartment along with his friend, Tanay Mojumdar. The

two men were both openly gay and fought for LGBT rights in the Middle Eastern country by

editing and publishing the only LGBT magazine in Bangladesh, Roopbaan (News BBC,

2016). They knew the dangers of being openly gay in their line of work, especially since being

gay is illegal in Bangladesh. However, they did not think that their lives were in danger, for

they took every precaution to ensure that they remained anonymous in their work.

Two men, posing as UPS delivery men, made their way past the many guards at the

apartment building, and knocked on the door to the apartment housing Mannan, Mojumdar, and

Mannans mother, who was asleep at the time. When Mojumdar opened the door, the two men

killed him and entered the apartment. They then took Mannan and brought him in front of his

mother, who had woken up from all the commotion, and beheaded him in front of her, despite

her resistance, which had earned her a broken leg. When the police had arrived, they found her

on the ground next to her now dead son, trying to put him back together. (Rabbi, 2016)

I first heard this story from my mother, Kathy Hinson, who works with Mannans

nephew on the Human Rights Commission in Virginia Beach, and I knew that the focus of my

senior project needed to be LGBT+ rights in the Middle East. As a lesbian with family and

friends in the LGBT+ community, I could not allow myself to sit back and let other members of

the LGBT+ community be murdered and imprisoned for being who they are, simply because
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 6

others did not agree with it. Persecution of LGBT+ people in the Islamic Middle East stems

from the rigid patriarchal social hierarchy that makes men dominant over everyone else, and

how gender roles in public society correlate to sexual roles in private society.

Body

Islamic Middle Eastern Views on Homosexuality Today

For the criminalization of homosexuality to come to an end in the Islamic Middle East,

we must first approach their understanding of homosexuality. The Islamic Middle East is home

to rigid patriarchal societies, which place men on top of the social hierarchy, and women,

children, and slaves on the bottom. Men are revered in Islamic Middle Eastern culture, and

though homosexuality is viewed in a negative light, it is not wrong for men to revere other

mens beauty. Also, gender separation is common in the Islamic Middle East, especially in the

more conservative Islamic countries, so homosocial behavior flourishes and men often feel

more comfortable socializing with other men than with women. In Egypt, men can often be

seen holding hands while walking down the street, straight men in Lebanon spend hours

preening themselves, and Afghani warriors often wear eye makeup. (Whitaker, 2016) Men often

hug and kiss one another as well, and as long as there is no chance for temptation, same-sex

kissing is perfectly fine. (Islam Online (Fatwa), 2003) Western cultures will see this as

homosexual behavior, but it does not have the same meaning in the Middle East as it does in

Western societies. It usually is not a sexual relationship, but a close platonic one.

That does not mean there is no homosexual behavior happening in the Middle East.

Despite what some countries say today, Muslim societies have often acknowledged this fact,

even tolerated it to an extent, despite their disapproval. Before same-sex marriage was even
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 7

considered in Western society, male partnerships were recognized, and even marked with a

ceremony, in Siwa, a remote Egyptian oasis. However, in Iran1 and many other Middle Eastern

countries today, sodomy is a capital offense, and people are frequently executed for it.

(Whitaker, 2016)

Due to the patriarchal societies, men are always viewed as dominant in society, so

lesbianism is largely ignored, because women are lower on the hierarchy, but homosexual

relationships between men, where one man is submissive, completely go against their ideals of

male dominance (Dunne, 1998). Although both parties involved in anal sex are punished

equally by law, the popular opinions of the man penetrating are usually less harsh, for he is just

doing what men naturally do, even if it is not with a woman. The submissive man, however, is

viewed as behaving like a woman, and since he cannot be doing it for pleasure, in their mindset,

they conclude that he must be a prostitute (Whitaker, 2016).

In his Middle East report, Dunne addresses that even today, sexual relations, whether

they are heterosexual or homosexual, are still understood as relations of power linked to rigid

gender roles. He points out that in Turkey, Egypt, and the Maghrib, men who are dominant or

active in sex (i.e. the one penetrating) are not considered homosexual, and the sexual

domination of men can even be considered as a status of hyper-masculinity. Malek Chebel, an

anthropologist, claims that most Maghribi men who engage in homosexual acts are functional

bisexuals who use men as a substitute for women- and have great contempt for these

substitutes. He adds that most Maghibris view the presence of love, affection, and equality

among those participating in sex far worse than homosexual acts, because equality during sex,

whether its homosexual or heterosexual, threatens the hyper-masculine order.

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 8

Violence against male homosexuals is on the rise. Effiminate male dancers, called

khawals, once popular performers in 19th century Egypt, are being beaten, and the term khawal

today is an insult equivalent to the Western term faggot. While the 19th century khawals were

not given the respect of men, there is little evidence that they were subjected to violence. The

global cultural ideals of diverse sexualities and human sexual rights has encouraged the

formation of small gay subcultures in large cities such as Cairo, Beirut, and Istanbul, and

even some political activism, particularly in Turkey. Although homosexuality is not a crime in

Turkey2, members of the LGBT+ community in Turkey have been assaulted by police and

sometimes even outed to families and employers, and Turkish gay activists have specifically

been targeted. Many LGBT+ people have sought asylum in Western nations as refugees from

official persecution. (Dunne, 1998)

Many countries still criminalize sodomy and homosexuality today. Even though there

have been few persecutions in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Mauritania,

the problem with these laws, even if not heavily enforced, is they signal official disapproval of

homosexuality. Added to the denouncements of religious scholars, it legitimizes discrimination

by individuals at an everyday level and provides an excuse for action by vigilantes. Years

before ISIS began throwing allegedly gay men off of rooftops, other groups in Iraq were

attacking un-manly men, and sometimes even killing them slowly by injecting glue into the

anuses of said un-manly men. (Whitaker, 2016)

While the results are catastrophic for those who are caught by law, the law is not much

of a deterrent. Additionally, the risk of arrest is small for those who are discreet about their

sexuality. The attitudes of the families and of society around those who identify as LGBT+

present a much bigger problem. The one issue that all people face at some point in their lives is
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 9

coming out, and this can be especially difficult for Muslims. The pressure to get married is

much greater in Muslim countries than Western ones, because remaining single is usually

equated with social disaster. Once a young person finishes their studies, organizing their

marriage becomes the number one priority for the family, and the more traditional families take

on the task of finding them a partner, for arranged marriages are still commonplace. This

presents a major problem for those who are not attracted to the opposite sex. Some manage to

postpose the issue by prolonging their studies or going abroad, others give into the pressure and

accept a marriage for which they are not suited. A few of the luckier ones find a gay or lesbian

partner of the opposite sex and enter a false marriage (sometimes called a white marriage), and

still others decide to just come out and get it over with. (Whitaker, 2016)

How families respond to someone coming out depends on several factors, including

social class and education level. In more extreme cases, coming out results in ostracization by

their family or even being physically attacked or beaten. A slightly less harsh reaction is to seek

a cure either through religion or, in well-off families, expensive and futile psychiatric

treatment. (Whitaker, 2016)

Middle Eastern Views of Transgender People

Transgender is a broad term that includes intersex people (whose biological sex is

unclear or was wrongly assigned at birth), people with gender dysphoria (who feel trapped in a

body of the opposite gender), and may extend to others who get satisfaction or pleasure from

cross-dressing. The gender roles that are so heavily ingrained in Middle Eastern societies pose

great issues for transgender people, this is especially true in places where gender segregation is

strongly enforced and cross-dressing is criminalized. (Whitaker, 2016)

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 10

In Islamic history, there are cases involving transgender people which are

accommodating in some ways, but not in others. Reports from the prophet Muhammads

lifetime show he was familiar with three types of gender diversity outside the male-female

norm. There were castrated men, or eunuchs, and effeminate men, or mukhannatuun, to whom

the rules of gender segregation did not apply. They were allowed access to the womens

quarters, most likely because there was presumably no risk of sexual misconduct. Eunuchs

would often acquire influential positions administering wealthy Muslim households; however,

the mukhannathun were less respectable, and had a reputation of frivolity, though they were

mostly tolerated in the early years of Islam. During the Prophets life, mukhannathun werent

associated with homosexuality, though they became associated with it later on. (Whitaker,

2016)

Thirdly, intersex people, or the khuntha, had more complicated theology associated with

them. Chapter 51 of the Quran states God created everything in pairs. This forms the basis of

the Islamic ideal that everyone is either male or female, and no in-between. This raised the

question of what to do with children born with both genitalia since they could not be sex-

neutral. Islamic jurists resolved this query by coming to the conclusion that such children must

have and underlying hidden sex which was just waiting to be discovered. The sex of the child

would be determined by the place of urination, or mabal in Arabic, as the prophet is reported

to have stated. The 11th century Hanafi scholar al-Sarakhsi explained that a person who urinates

from the mabal of men is to be considered male, and a person who urinates from the mabal of

women would be considered female. (Whitaker, 2016)

These rulings provide a purpose for sex reassignment surgery in Islamic society, as long

as the purpose of said surgery is to uncover a persons hidden sex. Operations have been
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 11

carried out in Sunni Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, on that basis.

Although the rulings easily justify surgery in intersex cases, it is more difficult to apply them in

cases of gender dysphoria. A controversy sparked in Egypt during the 1980s when a 19-year-old

student was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and underwent male-to-female-reassignment

surgery. When Al-Azhar University refused to admit her as either a male or female student, the

case went public. Many found the concept of gender dysphoria difficult to grasp, and some saw

her as a gay man who was trying to game the system, and the affair resulted in a fatwa3 from

Muhammad Tantawi, Egypts Grand Mufti, which is still cited across the region today. Tantawi

said that surgery was permissible in order to reveal what was hidden of male or female organs

but that it was not permissible at the mere wish to change sex from woman to man, or vice

versa. (Whitaker, 2016)

This basically left the question of surgery for gender dysphoria unresolved, allowing

both supporters and opponents to interpret the fatwa as they saw fit. The main issue, however, is

not physically getting the surgery, but gaining social acceptance and official recognition of a

sex change. Theologically, Shia Iran seems to have fewer qualms with gender dysphoria than

Sunni Arab countries. There have been repeated claims that Iran now performs more

reassignment surgeries than any other country (except Thailand). While at first glance the

Iranian approach to transgender people might look liberal, it does have a darker aspect. One

concern is that people may be pressured into getting surgeries they do not actually want; there

are many transgender people who just want to be accepted as they are without surgery and

the Iranian system does not really provide for that. In addition, the difference between being

homosexual and being transgender is not fully understood in Iran, even within the medical

profession, and there are reports of homosexual men being pressured into surgery as a way of
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 12

regularizing their legal position and avoiding the risk of execution. (Whitaker, 2016)

History of Middle Eastern Views of Homosexuality

Everett Rowson has found that the sexual ideals found in Greek and late Roman

societies represent the Middle Eastern view of homosexuality from the 9th century to the present

and is characterized by the general importance of male dominance, the centrality of

penetration to conceptions of sex [and] the radical disjunction of active and passive roles in

male homosexuality (Rowson, 1991). While Islam acknowledges the fact that both men and

women have sexual drives and grants the right to sexual fulfillment within heterosexual

marriage and lawful concubinage, all other sexual behavior is considered illicit. (Dunne, 1998)

Gender segregation in social situations became legitimized in part due to the creation of

the idea that male and female were opposites: men were rational and capable of self-

control, while women were emotional and lacked self-control, especially of their sexual drives.

Female sexuality, if left unsatisfied or uncontrolled, could lead to social chaos so social order

required male control of womens bodies and licit sexuality was dominated by the patriarchy.

(Dunne, 1998) Dunne stated in his Middle East report,

Where men rule, sexes are segregated, male and family honor is linked to premarital

female virginity and sex is licit only within marriage or concubinage. (1998)

However, those who were denied access to licit sexuality had to find another way to release

their sexual desire.

The differences between normative morality (what should be) and social reality (what

actually is) in Middle Eastern societies supported prostitution in both males and females and

same-sex practices from the medieval to modern periods. Rulers saw prostitution as a socially
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 13

useful alternative to male sexual violence, and permitted it to continue, despite the objections of

religious scholars. (Dunne, 1998)

In medieval Islamic societies, sexuality was organized to conform to principles of social

and political hierarchy, namely the patriarchy, and it was defined, as Oberhelman states,

according to the domination by or reception of the penis in the sex act; moreover, ones

position in the social hierarchy also localized her or him in a predetermined sexual role. Sex,

in their definition of penetration, took place between dominant, free adult men and social

inferiors: wives, concubines, boys, prostitutes (both male and female), and slaves (both male

and female). Sex was not about mutual pleasure between partners, but the adult males

achievement of pleasure through domination.

Women were viewed as naturally submissive; male prostitutes were understood to

submit for financial gain rather than pleasure; and boys, being not yet men, could be

penetrated without losing their potential manliness. (Dunne, 1998)

The idea that an adult male could take pleasure in submitting to penetration in a subordinate

sexual role was considered inexplicable. (Dunne, 1998)

The relations between gender roles and sexual roles in medieval Muslim societies can

be explained by finding them in the public and private realms of society. Adult men, who

dominated wives and slaves in private, controlled the public realm, and while sex with boys and

male prostitutes made them sinners, the act did not affect their public position as men, or

threaten the social values of female virginity and family honor. Women, who could not

physically penetrate, were considered largely irrelevant to the conceptions of gender; thus,

female homosexuality and homoeroticism was mostly ignored. Effeminate men who voluntarily
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 14

and publicly behaved as women, known as mukhannaths, gave up their place in the dominant

male order. Though they lost their respectability as men, they were tolerated and even valued as

entertainers such as poets, musicians, dancers, and singers. Men who maintained a dominant

public persona but were submissive in private threatened the ideals of male dominance and

were vulnerable to challenge. (Dunne, 1998)

The introduction of sexual roles that conform to social hierarchies represents an

ideological framework in which individuals negotiated slight unconformities in their lives under

changing historical conditions. Male egalitarian homosexual relationships may have been

unacceptable in public, but evidence has been found that suggests, that in the medieval period,

men of equal status could negotiate homosexual acts by alternating dominant and submissive

roles. Also, lower-class women in Mamluk Egypt could not afford to observe ideals of female

seclusion, and upper-class women found ways to be a part of economic and social life, some

even using the threat of withholding sex to coax agreement from their husbands. In the Ottoman

period, women went to court to assert their rights to sexual fulfillment, like to divorce an absent

or impotent husband. States rarely tried to repress illicit sexual conduct or promote social-

sexual norms, such as closing brothels or ordering women indoors, unless political

circumstances called for the need to bolster regime legitimacy. (Dunne, 1998)

What the Quran Actually Says about Homosexuality

The Quran and the Bible say little about homosexuality, and what they do say about it

is not directly related to modern discussions of LGBT+ rights. Like pre-modern scholars of law

and ethics, the Quran and the Bible assume heteronormativity. Though there is plenty of
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 15

evidence for homoeroticism in the past (albeit illicit in religious standards), homosexuality as a

concept is relatively new: scriptures and later writers usually only referred to the sexual acts

themselves, not the concept of personal sexuality. For conservative Muslims and Christians, the

occasional reference to same-sex acts that puts them in a negative light is enough to prove their

inherent sinfulness in all circumstances. More liberal interpreters, however, argue that the

condemnations of scripture do not apply to committed relationships founded on love. (Krogt,

2016)

The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in both the Bible (Genesis 19) and the

Quran (7:80-95). The story, in essence, is the same in both books, and both the Islamic and

Christian religions base their ideals of homosexuality around the story.

The story focuses around Lot, who lived in the city of Sodom. Two angels came to Lot,

and he asked them to stay in his house overnight, and so they did. Before they went to bed,

every man from all around Sodom came to the house and surrounded it, demanding that Lot

bring the two men staying with him (the angels) out so that they may have sex with them. Lot

refused, and they closed in around him, trying to break down the door. The angels pulled him

inside and struck all of the men outside with blindness to prevent them from breaking the door

down. The angels tell Lot to get his family and run away from Sodom to the mountains, because

they are going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Knowing that he would not make

it that far, Lot begs the angels to let him flee to the next town over. They agree, and tell Lot and

his family to run and not look back until they reach the town, or they would be swept away with

the city. Lot and his family run, but Lots wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt. The

story ends with Abraham returning to the place where he stood before the Lord and watching

Sodom and Gomorrah go up in smoke. (Genesis 19:1-29)

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
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The story was originally interpreted as a condemnation of homosexual acts, but in the

last 60 years or so, many Christians have looked at the story again and come to the conclusion

that it is really condemning male rape and inhospitality rather than consensual sex between

males. So far, though, there have been only a few Muslims willing to reappraise it. While the

physical words of scripture are set in stone, so to speak, they are always subject to human

interpretation, which can vary depending on time, place, and social conditions; but this is

something that fundamentalists (Christian or Muslim) prefer to deny. (Whitaker, 2016)

The Hadith are thousands of stories reporting the words and deeds of the prophet

Muhammad and its authority in Islam is comparable to the Quran, and they condemn male

homosexual acts. The Quran (4:16) demands unspecified punishment for men guilty of

lewdness together unless they repent, yet the prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, If

you find anyone doing as Lots people did, kill the one that does it, and the one to whom it is

done. (38:44-47) Its not clear whether the Quran refers to lesbian acts, but the condemnation

of women who commit indecency (4:15) is sometimes interpreted in this way, and a few

Hadith warn women against seeing or touching one another when naked. (Krogt, 2016)

LGBT+ Rights Activism in the Middle East

Organized activism for LGBT+ rights in the Middle East began in the late 1990s and

early 2000s. Aswat Voices was started in 2002 by lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and

intersex (LBTQI) Palestinian women to establish a safe space for LBTQI women. (Aswat, n.d.)

Al Qaws came shortly after, and both organizations are based in Israel but have connections in

Palestinian territories. IraQueer is based in Iran and focuses on the importance of gender

identity and fights for LGBT+ rights in Iran. (SOGI, n.d.) The magazine Roopban is the only
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 17

LGBT+ magazine in Bangladesh. (News BBC, 2016) OutRight Action International formerly

known as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission started in 1991 and

works all over the globe with the UN to protect LGBT+ rights. (Our Model for Change, 2016)

There are other activist groups that have come and gone over the years, as well as Arab LGBT+

websites and blogs, which also tend to come and go. (Whitaker, 2016)

So far, no Arab countries have attempted to host a Pride Parade, though Turkey has had

many in Istanbul, not without opposition, since 2003. However, there have been activities

linked to the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) in Lebanon

and elsewhere, which is less likely to arouse hostility. (Whitaker, 2016)

Non-government organizations (NGOs) in Arab countries often face government

restrictions, and those NGOs working for LGBT+ rights face social stigma on top of that, which

makes it difficult to help LGBT+ people. In Iraq, it is illegal for NGOs to create shelters. While

that does not stop them from doing so, it is still not technically legal. There is not a law that

prohibits shelters from being created, the law actually encourages building shelters for those

who need it, but the authorities interpret the law as saying that only the government can create

these shelters. Since the government does not build them, NGOs build them instead. (When

Coming Out, n.d.)

Conclusion

LGBT+ persecution in the Middle East stems from the rigid gender roles ingrained into

their patriarchal societies, and how public social status correlates to private sexual roles. In
LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 18

other words, since men are always on top, the idea that a man can submit to another man in a

sexual setting is inexplicable. Also, the lack of understanding in relation to gender dysphoria

and the difference between homosexuality and transgender increases hatred and hostility

towards transgender people.

History shows that with the rigid patriarchal ideals, and the idea that sex revolves

around domination by a penis. The real problem, from the Middle Eastern viewpoint, is the

notion that there can be equality between sexual partners, that genders are on equal standing

with one another, and that men are not always dominant. History also shows that homosexual

acts were tolerated in the past, despite the disapproval of religious figures and scholars.

Even with the killings of LGBT+ people by ISIS and the criminalization of

homosexuality and sodomy still in effect in many Middle Eastern countries today, hope is in

sight. Activist groups from all over the world and the UN are working to end the criminalization

of homosexuality and the persecution of LGBT+ people across the globe, but the fight is far

from over. In order for the cycle of hatred to finally come to a close, everyone must try to come

to a better understanding of those who are different from oneself, and remember the fact that

underneath it all, we are all human.

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Appendix

1) The 13 following Middle Eastern countries criminalize homosexuality today: Afghanistan,

LGBT+ Rights in the Islamic Middle East: How Social Hierarchies Affect Views of
Homosexuality 23

Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi-Arabia, Syria, United Arab

Emirates, and Yemen. (Gerber, 2014) For a full list of specific laws, go to

https://antigaylaws.org/regional/middle-east/

2) Five countries in the Middle East currently do not criminalize homosexuality: Mali, Jordan,

Indonesia, Turkey, and Albania. (Jama, 2015)

3) A fatwa is a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority. (Webster, n.d.)

4) The Grand Mufti is the highest official of religious law in a Sunni or Ibadi Muslim country.

(Grand Mufti, n.d.)

5) A concubine is a mistress; a woman who lives with a man, but has lower status than his wife

or wives. (Webster, n.d.)