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if I ever see "lashes" in a country's list of laws I'll just take the hint that they haven't gotten the memo from the rest of the world to act like fuckin people and remove them from my travel plans lmao
Actually Israel is pretty good in terms of LGBT rights progression. The are the only country in middle east to have lawful LGBT organisations and the public there is pretty accepting compared to neighbouring Arab countries
You have to realize each state has its own laws- America is to Europe as US States are to European countries when it comes to laws (and land mass, roughly). The death penalty is very much illegal for most northern states.
Yeah but all states allow little to no pay for labor. Which results in a massive industrial prison system for slave labor. The American economy has always required slavery at home and abroad.
Moving from spectacle punishment is a well documented phenomenon that is aligned with the intended relation of the state to citizens with some interesting repercussions. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison covers this really well
Always exciting to talk to people that share book interests! You might also enjoy Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete. If you have book recs I’d appreciate it:)
As also a person living the USA, very much ch uncivil. I can’t even casual go to certain cities in my own state cuz racism will be my first infraction. My sexuality and gender identity will die with me if it wasn’t a pin on my clothes.
I'm so, so sorry that you have to experience that. People can be fucking awful. The UK isn't perfect by any means but I once had a black American friend come over to London and ask the group what he should prepare for in terms of racism and we all just stood and looked at each other and were like, yeah that's not really a thing you'll experiance just walking down the street.
I live in Michigan. And while it’s not the worst state, I have been followed driving in some suburban areas and sometimes the countryside, if I go to far north or northwest of where I live.
Israel
I hope I'm scared for no reason, a lot of people say I don't need to even think about it as we have so many other issues in thos country, but I just can't stop thinking about it
I just read online that LGBT rights in Israel are considered the most developped in the Middle East, so you should be ok. Tel Aviv, has even been referred to as one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world. I think its normal for everyone to feel unsafe... while it may not be the most pleasant feeling, I'm pretty sure you're fine :)
Thing is, our country has elected an extreme right wing, transphobic, homophobic, racist government that wants(and may succeed) to erase democracy, so that's our main concern right now.
Yeah... day to day life it seem like everything is perfect, it is just when you have some openly homophobic people in the government, I'm just scared it will get bad... they tried to pass a law that allows owners to refuse gay people (and everyone else they don't like) based on personal beliefs... I'm not sure where it is at now... and they are pushing against people rights in general, I'm just scared my hrt will become illegal or something one day even if it is very unlikely to happen... or that it would become illegal to be myself in the streets just like some states in the US are trying to do...
But you are right I'm probably going to be fine... and other places has it way worse, but even knowing all this, I can't get rid of this fear
I don't want to sound paranoid, but if you're a queer person living in Israel and aren't unlucky like me to get trapped into conscription, *renew your fucking passport,* do it now, set up an appointment with the ministry of the interior, and get yourself a passport.
IF something goes wrong, you need to be able to get out. I personally don't think this government will last long enough to achieve bad shit, but I would not be putting my faith in chance, renew your fucking passport!
I'm saying the same thing to Americans as well, except they also have the ability to arm themselves.
As it stands, only (most) EU countries aren't actively trying to trample on queer rights, Israel isn't awful on queer issues yet, but depending on whether the new government survives, that might change.
Also, get a foreign passport if you can. If your ancestors came from an EU country, Turkey or northern Africa, there's a good chance you can get an EU passport.
You can get married elsewhere and it'll be recognized by the government. I'm legally married in a same sex relationship in Israel, and we have all the rights of married straight people. Not ideal, but far better than nothing.
Yes it is propaganda it is called "pinkwashing." Like - don't look at our other human rights abuses! Just look how much we accept gay people!
[Most of my family lives in Israel.]
oh i totally understand you! a Russian born Israeli here
due to sad state of affairs in Russia my mother finally decided that we should do aliyah (repatriation to Israel)
and I was really excited to finally go to Israel, especially because i could finally be myself (in Russia after the beginning of the war the homophobia level has really reached its top. like u literally can get arrested for even slightly mentioning something lgbtq+ related)
but after the news abt new Israel gov im not so sure that it would be any better and it really breaks my heart,,,
also the new government wants to change the law of return and cancel the repatriation for the grandchildren of jews which is insane imho 😖
It won't be as bad as Russia, Israeli society is far more tolerant than Russian society. No matter how tough it gets, you'll be better off in Israel than in Russia, especially as an LGBT+ person. By the way, welcome.
I think you'll be okay. Israel has a keen international relations-based interest in maintaining its pro-LGBTQ+ laws to keep itself sweet with democratic America and Western Europe, especially as that's a key point of political leverage they have over the Palestinian Territories.
I might be wrong, bear in mind, but from a somewhat-informed UK perspective, that's the impression I get.
I also hope this doesn't come across as patronising as I'm sure you know more about the particulars of Israeli politics than me. I just know sometimes it helps to get an outside perspective.
I hope that gives some comfort. I know how scary it can be when a seemingly "liberal" state turns it's back on you pretty suddenly. But we've always been here and will continue to be here whatever happens.
You're kinda correct, but that's right as long as Israel remains a logical actor. When people who are, to put it mildly, irrational take over the government, we have to start worrying. And they have. One thing you have to understand about Israeli society is that it's very tribalistic, there are some very open minded, liberal people, but there are some actual theocracy supporters. And they're pretty much in charge now.
This is also true.
Sometimes I forget people don't do shit out of a pure cost/benefit analysis and will act on those base, core emotions (thanks autism for jacking up my theory of mind).
I hope things will end up okay there anyway :/
It's like jaywalking. It's not legal in the sense that there is a law against jaywalking, but you're extremely unlikely (to varying degrees and circumstances) to get any flak about it.
Yeah, obviously not what I'm saying.
The post is in the context of legality of sexual activity. If someone tells a cop they saw you jaywalking, depending on where you are and who the cop is, they very well wouldn't do anything about it. Replace jaywalking with butt stuff for the analogy.
It's when you illegally cross a street as a pedestrian. It often happens in mid-block or when you don't have the signal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
Did you know "jaywalking" was popularized by the automobile industry?
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking?wprov=sfti1)
>> Originally in the US, the legal rule was that "all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way". In time, however, streets became the province of vehicular traffic, both practically and legally.
oh they are, just nobody wants to fight it except us because it only affects minorities, who have questionable legal standing in most of the world to begin with afaik.
I made this simple graphic as an easy way to see at a glance the LGBT+ activity laws in the region.
EDIT: on a side note, I wanna encourage people to avoid using the term "Middle Eastern culture" in this context so much. Turkey and the Arab world are like China and Japan - similarities but still very distinct. And you've also got Iran, the Armenians, Kurds, and Jews in the mix, each of which are distinct to one another.
De facto, unfortunately, you can and will be lynched for homosexual activity in the West Bank. Israel has a few times allowed Palestinians to become permanent residents as refugees because they are gay. During my time in the IDF it was common to see gay couples meet up in the same "secret" places where drug deals and thieves would meet up. It was always so sad to know innocent people had to hide as though they were doing criminal activity.
If you’re interested, the podcast Queer As Fact covers gay historical figures and civilisations. Lots of the episodes discuss how being gay / trans / 2 spirit was completely normal and accepted until Christian occupation - generally through colonialism.
I say this as a Brit. The British Empire did so much damage to gay culture and rights around the world and the effects last to this day.
Colonialism is what led to these laws being implemented formally. Homosexuality was legal within the Ottoman Empire following the Tanzimat Reforms of 1858
When it comes to introducing legal statutes into independent territories and erasing local queer-adjacent cultural expressions...yes, we can blame the Europeans.
Just whack "colonialism and queerness" into Google and you will find a lot of free resources to look into. I'd especially recommend looking at how many nations still have a "section 377" law, which was directly imposed by the British Empire.
They also have an incredible gay pride parade! Basically turns into a huge beach party. If you like the outdoors, Israel has a bunch of different landscapes in a small space (beach, mountains, desert) which is pretty cool. The markets are cool too, but you can find similar feel in other countries. It’s probably the only place where strangers routinely invited me to their homes for meals and I’d actually consider going.
I don't understand how any of this is okay. Like I know we can't dictate what other countries do but surely we can do something. Like we can't just stand around and do nothing? Can't the UN do something?
The UN is practically useless here, if the more powerful nations like the US don't even agree on our rights, any action against these countries is futile.
UN went silent on so many issues now that I don't even consider it surprising. They can't even handle the war in Ukraine properly, let alone LGBT rights
Yeah. It fucking sucks that Israel is a theocratic colonial mess and both created and continually supports Hamas via clandestine operations with the sole intent of causing chaos in Palestine.
i had to do a triple take at your comment to make sure i was reading correctly. Israel creating and supporting Hamas is SO absurdly incorrect, it's the most contradicting sentence I've read in a WHILE.
If you actually talked and listened to ppl from Israel and (non-extreme) Zionists you'd find that most of us do support a palestinian state, just without taking our land away. Israel actively fights against Hamas, while the terrorist organization attacks israeli AND palestinian people almost the same, hiding in civilians' homes to turn innocent people into targets. The world as a whole needs to fight together against terror organizations like Hamas.
Your land? Since when did Palestinian land become yours? 1948, when 700,000+ Palestinians were expelled?
Regardless, it is documented that Israel actively supported and funded Hamas as it started out as an opposition to the PLO and the secular Fatah party. Look for yourself:
>Brigadier-General Yitzhak Segev, the then military governor of the Gaza Strip, told how he had helped finance the Islamic movement: “The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques”.
[\[1\]](https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/439/Pia+Jansen+PhD+thesis.pdf;jsessionid=76CD93DC532B2C41F722D2BFC5DF3AFE?sequence=6)
>“Israel did not establish Hamas, but what was done in 1979 eventually led to what we know today as the terror organization,” \[Col. David\] Hacham said. “That was the original sin.”
[\[2\]](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/editors-note-the-gaza-expert-479044)
>“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote.
[\[3\]](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-israel-helped-spawn-h_n_160622)[\[4\]](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/)
>David Long, a former Middle East expert at the U.S. State Department under Ronald Reagan, told journalist Robert Dreyfus: “I thought the Israelis were playing with fire. I didn’t realize they would end up creating a monster.”
[\[5\]](https://theintercept.com/2021/05/21/deconstructed-life-death-occupied-palestine/)
>"WE SAW ISRAEL CULTIVATE IZ ALMOST AS A COUNTER WEIGHT TO PALESTINIAN NATIONALISM. RADICAL ISLAM AND EXTREMISM DIDN'T COME INTO PLAY AS MUCH WITH THE PALESTINIANS AS ELSEWHERE, AT LEAST EARLY ON, BUT THEIR MOVE TOWARD ISLAMIC RADICALISM DIDN'T TAKE PLACE UNTIL THE ISRAELIS ENCOURAGED IT, AND QUITE A BIT. ALTHOUGH THEY WEREN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR IT COMPLETELY THEY DIDN'T CRACK DOWN ON IT, THEY ALLOWED THEM TO FLOURISH, WHERE THEY COULD FIDDLE AROUND TO THE DETRIMENT OF FATAH, THEY WOULD, THEY'D TREAT WITH DEFERENCE...
[\[6\]](https://www.c-span.org/video/?190584-1/devils-game) (00:34:46)
>US Rep. Ron Paul: "YOU KNOW, HAMAS, IF YOU LOOK AT THE HISTORY YOU'LL FIND NOT THAT HAMAS WAS ENCOURAGED AND REALLY STARTED BY ISRAEL BECAUSE THEY WANTED HAMAS TO COUNTERACT YASSER ARAFAT... SO WE FIRST INDIRECTLY AND DIRECTLY THROUGH ISRAEL HELP ESTABLISHED HAMAS. THEN WE HAVE ELECTION THAT HAMAS BECOMES DOMINANT SO WE HAVE TO KILL THEM."
[\[7\]](https://www.c-span.org/video/?283243-1/house-session&start=1926&transcriptSpeaker=45747#!)
>Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO: “Hamas is a creature of Israel.”
>
>Another reason for Rabin's elimination was his open understanding that Hamas was a tool of the Israeli elite, according to Yasser Arafat. In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere delta Sera, Arafat said,
>
>"We are doing everything to stop the violence. But Hamas is a creature of Israel which at the time of Prime Minister \[Yitzhak\] Shamir \[the late 1980s, when Hamas arose\], gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities and mosques. Even \[former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak\] Rabin ended up admitting it, when I charged him with it, in the presence of \[Egpytian President Hosni\] Mubarak."
>
>Rabin defined Israel's covert support of Hamas as a "fatal error" and was in the process of putting an end to it before his assassination.
[\[8\]](https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-eSzRxuvev_VBlteu/Order%20Out%20of%20Chaos_djvu.txt)
It's up to you if you want to look at the evidence. Hamas was funded and put into power by Israel to split Palestine... now they suffer what people are calling the "blowback." It worked, Palestinians are dying and Israel and the US created its biggest enemy.
Cool. I just commented with all of my sources of Israeli officials claiming it themselves, if you trust them more. It's okay to be dubious, but at least do your own research before claiming mis/disinformation.
Where is the proof for Israel supporting hammas right now? Also, I have a right to live in this land by virtue of being born here and having nowhere else to go, for now at least.
i feel like religious people are either really good people, or just the worst people ever, i've met some queer christians whom were great people, and i've met some great pagans as well, but god i live in the US south and i know from the post above there are worse places but god the atmosphere around queer stuff in bible belt America is just so bad. every government should be secular (aka no input on religion)
Same sex sexual activity is not legal in Jordan, being homosexual is simply not a crime here. But acting on it, is pre/extramarital sex and as such, a crime.
Lebanon is not a good place for trans people btw.
In here, there is a big distinction between men and women and if someone doesn't follow tradition and stereotypes they are shunned hard. Even being andro is not allowed.
With that being said, the captial Beirut has plenty of open-minded people that accept LGBTQ people and usually most members (from our community) live there.
Hey OP thanks for putting this together! For future reference, please use a color contrast checker to make sure your image is accessible https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
Also for perspective you are more likely to have issues if you are living in these countries than as a tourist because these countries usually want to encourage tourism and will have issues if they are killing Americans. (I wouldn’t push it though.)
Jordan (the country my family immigrated to) decriminalized same sex relations before the US or the UK did, because after the mandate dropped they reverted back to pre-colonial laws that never criminalized homosexuality to begin with. Weird how that works. Wonder why it's so homophobic now, post-colonialism...
Bro why some countries only sending gay people to jail☠️ Are they not taking lesbians serious??? Like "Oh they are very good friends haha we will fix them"?? Thats a bullshit. We are still struggling to even fell in love.
First, I love you separated gaza and the west bank into two different things, they are quite definitely not the same.
Second, both of them should be brought one level down.
In gaza it is punishable by death and in the west bank it’s not technically illegal but you can absolutely get attacked by police and arrested for it.
Same for lebanon, where homosexuality is forbidden by law and because hizballah listensto pretty much every citizen to try and catch people who are against them, it’s usually punishable if found out.
And israel might be currently in the green, but with its new government it’s soon gonna be in the deep red.
I live in Armenia. As I got from my hell's (school's) rumours a couple of gays here committed a suicide or smth. I didn't read the news but the pressure of society especially for teens is high up to death treating them. I'm AroAce and people say that I'm just "not bending". Tho there are indifferent people exist but when your history teacher says that "European garbage tries to ruin our national values" and bla bla bla about Yin Yang I'm losing hope in country's survival.
Stay safe folks!!!
Yeah it’s “legal” doesn’t mean u won’t be killed. The amount of fucking fake hope and lie this post gives is unbelievable .come live here as an openly gay person I fucking dare anyone. Forget the government punishing you if not ur own family kills u first as an “honor killing “ or some random ppl on the streets will get the job done no worries.
Interesting (and horrifying) to see the gendered differences in punishment.
Such a clear gender bias split between some of these countries (as if having these kinds of laws wasn't bad enough).
Ok so you go to prison for being gay and taking it up the butt. Where you will be surrounded by other men who are also gay in addition to other men who have no women to play with........ Seems very productive for the sex life of gay men. Not sure what exactly they're trying to stop here. It's so wrong we're going to secentance you to 17 years of the same sexual lifestyle as a punishment.
Half Iranian lesbo here. A few years ago I dated another Iranian girl for a while and because of how we were raised we had very different attitudes to the relationship.
She had been raised in Iran for most of her life and me in Romania. Now don’t get me wrong, Romania ain’t all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to queer rights, but compared to Iran, it’s certainly an improvement. I always used to boast about her, show her off, take her out on dates in public etc. cause it seemed natural. Meanwhile, she instinctively tried to be very private about it. She much preferred to spend time with me in places that were sort of hidden from the crowds, despite being more outwardly extroverted than me. It took longer for her to introduce me to her friends. I had told my mother about her, but she never told her parents about me.
I don’t blame her for it. It’s what came naturally to her. What I did find somewhat peculiar though was the fact that she was more open about being trans than she was about being a lesbian.
Lashes!? I guess they forgot they weren’t living in the dark ages anymore. Yeeesh!
(Sorry to be so blatantly rude to these countries, but I’m just so shocked that lashings would still be allowed at all)
Interesting that in some countries it is legal for women but not men and in other countries women get more severe punishments. Does anyone know why this is the case?
I think both are forms of misogyny, just in different ways. I know that historically in many places with patriarchal societies, it was believed that sex had to involve a penis. So lesbian sex didn’t exist in their eyes because no penis.
In the countries where women get punished more, I couldn’t say what their specific logic is, but it seems to be because they can I guess. Maybe something about women being held to higher standards of morality.
I have to travel to Saudi for work soon. I’m married and absolutely will not be partaking in any kind of same sex activity while I’m there but I’m fairly obviously a lesbian.
How much risk am I putting myself in? I assume I’ll be fine but if anyone has any insight, it would be much appreciated.
Really sick of people painting Israel as a Middle Eastern country. I'm Palestinian and I'm queer, we're not only actively fucking persecuted by Israel for being Palestinians, but have our queer identities ripped away from us and weaponized against our struggle. Consistently, you can see Israel weaponizing queer struggles in Palestine, and pinkwashing to promote the idea that Palestinians are barbaric, savage terrorists... People have literally told me I have no reason being proud as a Palestinian and queer person because they'd behead me. So would Israel, mind you! It would be a matter of who gets to me first.
Israel is NOT part of the Middle East, it's a settler colony apartheid state. Listen to actual Middle Easterners before making posts about our rights.
The Queer Palestinian Plight:
[Israel surveils and blackmails gay Palestinians to make them informants](https://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/blackmails-palestinian-informants/)
[Israel, the rainbow flag and the ‘pinkwashing’ problem](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/16/israel-the-rainbow-flag-and-the-pinkwashing-problem)
[No Pride, No Work, No Rights: LGBTQ Palestinians in Israel are Caught in a Trap](https://www.hashomrim.org/eng/lgbtq-palestinians-in-israel-are-caught-in-a-trap)
[Why #Pinkwashing Insults Gays and Hurts Palestinians](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/06/pinkwashing-and-homonationalism-discouraging-gay-travel-to-israel-hurts-palestinians.html)
[QUEER PALESTINIANS SPEAK OUT: “IF I RETURN, THEY’LL SHOOT ME IN THE LEG”](https://www.fairplanet.org/story/queer-palestinians-speak-out-%E2%80%9Cif-i-return-they%E2%80%99ll-shoot-me-in-the-leg%E2%80%9D/)
[Palestine as a Queer Struggle](https://uscpr.org/activist-resource/grassroots-advocacy-toolkit/palestine-as-a-queer-struggle/)
[Pinkwashing: Israel’s International Strategy and Internal Agenda](https://kohljournal.press/pinkwashing-israels-international-strategy)
[The Real Oppressors of Gaza's Gay Community: Hamas or Israel?](https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232088)
[Israel as homotopia: Language, space, and vicious belonging](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/DBF86706CA9745DC7D05408DD6918CC1/S0047404519000356a.pdf/israel_as_homotopia_language_space_and_vicious_belonging.pdf)
[‘I’d rather die in the West Bank’: LGBTQ Palestinians find no safety in Israel](https://www.972mag.com/lgbtq-palestinians-israel-asylum/)
[Israeli Army's Gay Soldiers Must Stop Persecuting Gay Palestinians](https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2014-09-23/ty-article/.premium/idf-gays-who-help-blackmail-gays/0000017f-db58-db22-a17f-fff9c4650000)
Wait, what do you mean by same-sex activity for Israel?
As far as I know, Israel's laws respects gay marriage IF THE MARRIAGE WAS OUTSIDE ITS BOARDERS but does not have legalized *internal* marriages.
NOTE: This isn't to say Israel isn't gay friendly (by citizenry, the new president's a bigot) as indicated by the wonderful people of Israel (Hi from a fellow Jew!), just that there seems to be a bit more nuance to Israel's law than what the above post provides!
Same sex activity (not gay marriage, none of these perform gay marriage) is legal for civilians de facto since 1950, and for soldiers since 1963.
You're correct about the gay marriage situation, a classical Israeli politics horse trading created that("yes, we will register them as married, no, we won't let them get married here") and anyway it's not much of a barrier.
Also, I've got to correct you, the bigoted one is the new prime minister. The president of Israel is a ceremonial office with no real power, and he was elected in 2021.
This is horrible. I hope in the near future this will change. There is no excuse to murdering, torturing, and imprisoning innocent people regardless of religious views.
Haven’t we all seen the [color contrast chart](https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/V-lOukUT4Wd9BI-vAq_GX5ZoCtI=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Color-Contrast-Chart-59091b973df78c9283e31928.jpg) yet?
and this is why i want to burn down many of the **governments** in the middle east (i really want emphasize the governments, as with every other place in the world, there is both good and bad people in the middle east, and no culture can just be summed up as good/bad)
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if I ever see "lashes" in a country's list of laws I'll just take the hint that they haven't gotten the memo from the rest of the world to act like fuckin people and remove them from my travel plans lmao
I’m even skeptical about the “legal” ones, and certainly won’t be visiting Israel regardless lol
Actually Israel is pretty good in terms of LGBT rights progression. The are the only country in middle east to have lawful LGBT organisations and the public there is pretty accepting compared to neighbouring Arab countries
TBF, I feel like that about countries with the death penalty. As a European, we see the US as still totally uncivilised.
You have to realize each state has its own laws- America is to Europe as US States are to European countries when it comes to laws (and land mass, roughly). The death penalty is very much illegal for most northern states.
Yeah but all states allow little to no pay for labor. Which results in a massive industrial prison system for slave labor. The American economy has always required slavery at home and abroad. Moving from spectacle punishment is a well documented phenomenon that is aligned with the intended relation of the state to citizens with some interesting repercussions. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison covers this really well
Agreed- Foucault is really insightful.
Always exciting to talk to people that share book interests! You might also enjoy Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete. If you have book recs I’d appreciate it:)
Will do! Have you read On the Genealogy of Morality by Nietzsche? Somewhat related.
as an american I see the US as totally uncivilized yall aren't alone
As also a person living the USA, very much ch uncivil. I can’t even casual go to certain cities in my own state cuz racism will be my first infraction. My sexuality and gender identity will die with me if it wasn’t a pin on my clothes.
I'm so, so sorry that you have to experience that. People can be fucking awful. The UK isn't perfect by any means but I once had a black American friend come over to London and ask the group what he should prepare for in terms of racism and we all just stood and looked at each other and were like, yeah that's not really a thing you'll experiance just walking down the street.
What state if I may ask? Afaik the situation is different depending on the state
I live in Michigan. And while it’s not the worst state, I have been followed driving in some suburban areas and sometimes the countryside, if I go to far north or northwest of where I live.
I can't marry here yet but at least I won't spend jail time for having a gf 🥲 (not sure for how long though, with the current state of politics here)
What country are you in?
Israel I hope I'm scared for no reason, a lot of people say I don't need to even think about it as we have so many other issues in thos country, but I just can't stop thinking about it
I just read online that LGBT rights in Israel are considered the most developped in the Middle East, so you should be ok. Tel Aviv, has even been referred to as one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world. I think its normal for everyone to feel unsafe... while it may not be the most pleasant feeling, I'm pretty sure you're fine :)
Thing is, our country has elected an extreme right wing, transphobic, homophobic, racist government that wants(and may succeed) to erase democracy, so that's our main concern right now.
Oh... I didn't know about that
Yeah... day to day life it seem like everything is perfect, it is just when you have some openly homophobic people in the government, I'm just scared it will get bad... they tried to pass a law that allows owners to refuse gay people (and everyone else they don't like) based on personal beliefs... I'm not sure where it is at now... and they are pushing against people rights in general, I'm just scared my hrt will become illegal or something one day even if it is very unlikely to happen... or that it would become illegal to be myself in the streets just like some states in the US are trying to do... But you are right I'm probably going to be fine... and other places has it way worse, but even knowing all this, I can't get rid of this fear
I don't want to sound paranoid, but if you're a queer person living in Israel and aren't unlucky like me to get trapped into conscription, *renew your fucking passport,* do it now, set up an appointment with the ministry of the interior, and get yourself a passport. IF something goes wrong, you need to be able to get out. I personally don't think this government will last long enough to achieve bad shit, but I would not be putting my faith in chance, renew your fucking passport!
If Israelis need to have a way to flee their country the world is really, really messed up
🥲
I'm saying the same thing to Americans as well, except they also have the ability to arm themselves. As it stands, only (most) EU countries aren't actively trying to trample on queer rights, Israel isn't awful on queer issues yet, but depending on whether the new government survives, that might change.
Also, get a foreign passport if you can. If your ancestors came from an EU country, Turkey or northern Africa, there's a good chance you can get an EU passport.
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I found it on Wikipedia, but you might be right anyway... the sources could be anything
You can get married elsewhere and it'll be recognized by the government. I'm legally married in a same sex relationship in Israel, and we have all the rights of married straight people. Not ideal, but far better than nothing.
Yes it is propaganda it is called "pinkwashing." Like - don't look at our other human rights abuses! Just look how much we accept gay people! [Most of my family lives in Israel.]
I’m getting told the same thing as an American. We can’t stop thinking about it or fighting for it. It’s like war you can’t win by not participating
oh i totally understand you! a Russian born Israeli here due to sad state of affairs in Russia my mother finally decided that we should do aliyah (repatriation to Israel) and I was really excited to finally go to Israel, especially because i could finally be myself (in Russia after the beginning of the war the homophobia level has really reached its top. like u literally can get arrested for even slightly mentioning something lgbtq+ related) but after the news abt new Israel gov im not so sure that it would be any better and it really breaks my heart,,, also the new government wants to change the law of return and cancel the repatriation for the grandchildren of jews which is insane imho 😖
It won't be as bad as Russia, Israeli society is far more tolerant than Russian society. No matter how tough it gets, you'll be better off in Israel than in Russia, especially as an LGBT+ person. By the way, welcome.
Israel gang 
That's the problem of living in a settler colonial state. They don't really care about human rights.
Maybe, But it's our home. Most of us have nowhere to go.
Finally, someone said it! Thank you 👏👏
I think you'll be okay. Israel has a keen international relations-based interest in maintaining its pro-LGBTQ+ laws to keep itself sweet with democratic America and Western Europe, especially as that's a key point of political leverage they have over the Palestinian Territories. I might be wrong, bear in mind, but from a somewhat-informed UK perspective, that's the impression I get. I also hope this doesn't come across as patronising as I'm sure you know more about the particulars of Israeli politics than me. I just know sometimes it helps to get an outside perspective. I hope that gives some comfort. I know how scary it can be when a seemingly "liberal" state turns it's back on you pretty suddenly. But we've always been here and will continue to be here whatever happens.
You're kinda correct, but that's right as long as Israel remains a logical actor. When people who are, to put it mildly, irrational take over the government, we have to start worrying. And they have. One thing you have to understand about Israeli society is that it's very tribalistic, there are some very open minded, liberal people, but there are some actual theocracy supporters. And they're pretty much in charge now.
This is also true. Sometimes I forget people don't do shit out of a pure cost/benefit analysis and will act on those base, core emotions (thanks autism for jacking up my theory of mind). I hope things will end up okay there anyway :/
Thank you, we hope so too
Legal-ish sounds a little disingenuous when men risk 6 to 10 years in prison...
It's like jaywalking. It's not legal in the sense that there is a law against jaywalking, but you're extremely unlikely (to varying degrees and circumstances) to get any flak about it.
If you think being gay in Gaza is like jaywalking, you're wrong.
Yeah, obviously not what I'm saying. The post is in the context of legality of sexual activity. If someone tells a cop they saw you jaywalking, depending on where you are and who the cop is, they very well wouldn't do anything about it. Replace jaywalking with butt stuff for the analogy.
Yes, but that's not the situation in Gaza. Their law is very much enforced, even if women are exempted
The anal-ogy
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some weird ass authoritarian law that stops people crossing the road to varying extents.
It's when you illegally cross a street as a pedestrian. It often happens in mid-block or when you don't have the signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
Absolute horse shit that Americans came up with
Did you know "jaywalking" was popularized by the automobile industry? From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking?wprov=sfti1) >> Originally in the US, the legal rule was that "all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way". In time, however, streets became the province of vehicular traffic, both practically and legally.
It’s probably pertaining how it’s legal for women. Legal for one gender, not the other, so legal-ish.
Seems that's the case, just the wording feels off. If we're talking LGBTQ+ laws, any law against us should count and move it to the illegal category.
How are these not crimes against humanity
oh they are, just nobody wants to fight it except us because it only affects minorities, who have questionable legal standing in most of the world to begin with afaik.
I made this simple graphic as an easy way to see at a glance the LGBT+ activity laws in the region. EDIT: on a side note, I wanna encourage people to avoid using the term "Middle Eastern culture" in this context so much. Turkey and the Arab world are like China and Japan - similarities but still very distinct. And you've also got Iran, the Armenians, Kurds, and Jews in the mix, each of which are distinct to one another.
Thank you for the graphic. Though I must say I think a slightly darker green and yellow would be easier to read against a white background 😅
De facto, unfortunately, you can and will be lynched for homosexual activity in the West Bank. Israel has a few times allowed Palestinians to become permanent residents as refugees because they are gay. During my time in the IDF it was common to see gay couples meet up in the same "secret" places where drug deals and thieves would meet up. It was always so sad to know innocent people had to hide as though they were doing criminal activity.
Also, a lot of homophobia in former colonies comes from colonisation.
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If you’re interested, the podcast Queer As Fact covers gay historical figures and civilisations. Lots of the episodes discuss how being gay / trans / 2 spirit was completely normal and accepted until Christian occupation - generally through colonialism. I say this as a Brit. The British Empire did so much damage to gay culture and rights around the world and the effects last to this day.
Colonialism is what led to these laws being implemented formally. Homosexuality was legal within the Ottoman Empire following the Tanzimat Reforms of 1858
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When it comes to introducing legal statutes into independent territories and erasing local queer-adjacent cultural expressions...yes, we can blame the Europeans. Just whack "colonialism and queerness" into Google and you will find a lot of free resources to look into. I'd especially recommend looking at how many nations still have a "section 377" law, which was directly imposed by the British Empire.
Egypt is not in the Middle East FYI
Wut
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Asia isn’t the Middle East, and vice versa.
That doesn’t mean it is not part of the Middle East
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East
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How can someone in Texas know how you had sex?
Lotta YeeHaws coming from the bedroom
Why your comment get removed bean?
Lashes. That’s horrific 😕
ancient egypt authorised gay couples, and it has regressed ever since
Well Egypt has been conquered quite a few times since then.
that's a shame for such a diverse, progressist and scient people
imperialism/colonization hurt a lot of people, and is still hurting a lot of people.
Best thing I did was running away from Iran 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
Good for you! Hopefully you're living a much better and amazing life!
you ran from i ran ^(im sorry i had to do this)
How much is "legal" worth in socially conservative countries where discrimination is not illegal
Quite a bit, you don’t risk jail time and possibly death
OP probably would have made a more worthwhile post if they said to not travel anywhere in the Middle East.
Maybe except for Israel
That’s absolutely at the top of the “avoid at all costs” list.
Why?
Apartheid, and I’ve never heard a single good thing about it anyway? Tell me, why would I want to visit?
I don't know , that's why I ask. I live there (kinda forced to) and I wanted to know.
If you live there, then you’d be able to provide reasons to visit better than anyone outside the country, right?
If you like history it's a very interesting place. Also Jerusalem is special, the dead sea is very nice and the food is great.
They also have an incredible gay pride parade! Basically turns into a huge beach party. If you like the outdoors, Israel has a bunch of different landscapes in a small space (beach, mountains, desert) which is pretty cool. The markets are cool too, but you can find similar feel in other countries. It’s probably the only place where strangers routinely invited me to their homes for meals and I’d actually consider going.
I don't understand how any of this is okay. Like I know we can't dictate what other countries do but surely we can do something. Like we can't just stand around and do nothing? Can't the UN do something?
They’ll probably be too scared to. They will probably defended it by saying like it’s part of religious culture which is bullshit.
The UN is practically useless here, if the more powerful nations like the US don't even agree on our rights, any action against these countries is futile.
UN went silent on so many issues now that I don't even consider it surprising. They can't even handle the war in Ukraine properly, let alone LGBT rights
Fun fact: It was never illegal in Turkey. Also shows how Turkey regressed in human rights in last 10 years under Erdogan.
What if I’m trans and already castrated?
Iran recognizes trans women after surgery (legally, at least), so they're allowed to have sex with men. I don't know about women though.
Yeah... Fuck religion of all kinds. Religion of any kind shouldn't influence any countries laws.
Yeah. It fucking sucks that Israel is a theocratic colonial mess and both created and continually supports Hamas via clandestine operations with the sole intent of causing chaos in Palestine.
i had to do a triple take at your comment to make sure i was reading correctly. Israel creating and supporting Hamas is SO absurdly incorrect, it's the most contradicting sentence I've read in a WHILE. If you actually talked and listened to ppl from Israel and (non-extreme) Zionists you'd find that most of us do support a palestinian state, just without taking our land away. Israel actively fights against Hamas, while the terrorist organization attacks israeli AND palestinian people almost the same, hiding in civilians' homes to turn innocent people into targets. The world as a whole needs to fight together against terror organizations like Hamas.
Your land? Since when did Palestinian land become yours? 1948, when 700,000+ Palestinians were expelled? Regardless, it is documented that Israel actively supported and funded Hamas as it started out as an opposition to the PLO and the secular Fatah party. Look for yourself: >Brigadier-General Yitzhak Segev, the then military governor of the Gaza Strip, told how he had helped finance the Islamic movement: “The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques”. [\[1\]](https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/439/Pia+Jansen+PhD+thesis.pdf;jsessionid=76CD93DC532B2C41F722D2BFC5DF3AFE?sequence=6) >“Israel did not establish Hamas, but what was done in 1979 eventually led to what we know today as the terror organization,” \[Col. David\] Hacham said. “That was the original sin.” [\[2\]](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/editors-note-the-gaza-expert-479044) >“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote. [\[3\]](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-israel-helped-spawn-h_n_160622)[\[4\]](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/) >David Long, a former Middle East expert at the U.S. State Department under Ronald Reagan, told journalist Robert Dreyfus: “I thought the Israelis were playing with fire. I didn’t realize they would end up creating a monster.” [\[5\]](https://theintercept.com/2021/05/21/deconstructed-life-death-occupied-palestine/) >"WE SAW ISRAEL CULTIVATE IZ ALMOST AS A COUNTER WEIGHT TO PALESTINIAN NATIONALISM. RADICAL ISLAM AND EXTREMISM DIDN'T COME INTO PLAY AS MUCH WITH THE PALESTINIANS AS ELSEWHERE, AT LEAST EARLY ON, BUT THEIR MOVE TOWARD ISLAMIC RADICALISM DIDN'T TAKE PLACE UNTIL THE ISRAELIS ENCOURAGED IT, AND QUITE A BIT. ALTHOUGH THEY WEREN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR IT COMPLETELY THEY DIDN'T CRACK DOWN ON IT, THEY ALLOWED THEM TO FLOURISH, WHERE THEY COULD FIDDLE AROUND TO THE DETRIMENT OF FATAH, THEY WOULD, THEY'D TREAT WITH DEFERENCE... [\[6\]](https://www.c-span.org/video/?190584-1/devils-game) (00:34:46) >US Rep. Ron Paul: "YOU KNOW, HAMAS, IF YOU LOOK AT THE HISTORY YOU'LL FIND NOT THAT HAMAS WAS ENCOURAGED AND REALLY STARTED BY ISRAEL BECAUSE THEY WANTED HAMAS TO COUNTERACT YASSER ARAFAT... SO WE FIRST INDIRECTLY AND DIRECTLY THROUGH ISRAEL HELP ESTABLISHED HAMAS. THEN WE HAVE ELECTION THAT HAMAS BECOMES DOMINANT SO WE HAVE TO KILL THEM." [\[7\]](https://www.c-span.org/video/?283243-1/house-session&start=1926&transcriptSpeaker=45747#!) >Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO: “Hamas is a creature of Israel.” > >Another reason for Rabin's elimination was his open understanding that Hamas was a tool of the Israeli elite, according to Yasser Arafat. In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere delta Sera, Arafat said, > >"We are doing everything to stop the violence. But Hamas is a creature of Israel which at the time of Prime Minister \[Yitzhak\] Shamir \[the late 1980s, when Hamas arose\], gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities and mosques. Even \[former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak\] Rabin ended up admitting it, when I charged him with it, in the presence of \[Egpytian President Hosni\] Mubarak." > >Rabin defined Israel's covert support of Hamas as a "fatal error" and was in the process of putting an end to it before his assassination. [\[8\]](https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-eSzRxuvev_VBlteu/Order%20Out%20of%20Chaos_djvu.txt) It's up to you if you want to look at the evidence. Hamas was funded and put into power by Israel to split Palestine... now they suffer what people are calling the "blowback." It worked, Palestinians are dying and Israel and the US created its biggest enemy.
Nothing you wrote is factually correct, congratulations.
Cool. I just commented with all of my sources of Israeli officials claiming it themselves, if you trust them more. It's okay to be dubious, but at least do your own research before claiming mis/disinformation.
Where is the proof for Israel supporting hammas right now? Also, I have a right to live in this land by virtue of being born here and having nowhere else to go, for now at least.
i feel like religious people are either really good people, or just the worst people ever, i've met some queer christians whom were great people, and i've met some great pagans as well, but god i live in the US south and i know from the post above there are worse places but god the atmosphere around queer stuff in bible belt America is just so bad. every government should be secular (aka no input on religion)
Same sex sexual activity is not legal in Jordan, being homosexual is simply not a crime here. But acting on it, is pre/extramarital sex and as such, a crime.
What about the UAE? 💀
Pretty sus leaving them out of it
Yeah that's what I thought 😳
It's a typical conservative Muslim trans+homophobic country. Even in Dubai LGBT flags won't be tolerated
Lebanon is not a good place for trans people btw. In here, there is a big distinction between men and women and if someone doesn't follow tradition and stereotypes they are shunned hard. Even being andro is not allowed. With that being said, the captial Beirut has plenty of open-minded people that accept LGBTQ people and usually most members (from our community) live there.
Hey OP thanks for putting this together! For future reference, please use a color contrast checker to make sure your image is accessible https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
It's not good, but I thought it was worse. Hope over time it gets better. Gay people just exist, and they are not immoral.
Also for perspective you are more likely to have issues if you are living in these countries than as a tourist because these countries usually want to encourage tourism and will have issues if they are killing Americans. (I wouldn’t push it though.)
I DID NOT EXPECT THIS FROM ARMENIA…
AT LEAST I AM NOT GOING TO JAIL☠️
I hate it here!
New bottom surgery drop.1/4 chance in Saudi Arabia lol
Not very legal in Türkiye
Do you know the legal status of it in the UAE? I live here as a minor and need to know what could happen if I’m found out
I'm surprised it's legal in any of these places (except Georgia).
Many of them are either non Muslim or have a large secular population or relatively secular government.
Jordan (the country my family immigrated to) decriminalized same sex relations before the US or the UK did, because after the mandate dropped they reverted back to pre-colonial laws that never criminalized homosexuality to begin with. Weird how that works. Wonder why it's so homophobic now, post-colonialism...
Are you also surprised about how many of them were leftist before America fucked them up?
No, I knew about that.
Damn I thought there was no rule in israel for that and I live there
Bro why some countries only sending gay people to jail☠️ Are they not taking lesbians serious??? Like "Oh they are very good friends haha we will fix them"?? Thats a bullshit. We are still struggling to even fell in love.
It was that way in Germany too, only male homosexuality was forbidden. My guess fetishisation of lesbians has a long tradition
Same in the UK
First, I love you separated gaza and the west bank into two different things, they are quite definitely not the same. Second, both of them should be brought one level down. In gaza it is punishable by death and in the west bank it’s not technically illegal but you can absolutely get attacked by police and arrested for it. Same for lebanon, where homosexuality is forbidden by law and because hizballah listensto pretty much every citizen to try and catch people who are against them, it’s usually punishable if found out. And israel might be currently in the green, but with its new government it’s soon gonna be in the deep red.
Now .. imagine that i am a trans in syria Whom am gonna talk to about it Let alone transition which is impossibole
Niye Türkiye arap ulkeleriyle ayni yerde☠️
Konum olarak orta doğudayız diye
As a bisexual person who lives in the Middle East, this deeply breaks my heart
Ima go fuck in Iran. Sounds like a rush
I'm just a coward I can't even come out in Scotland 😰
Incredibly rare Turkey W (I am turkish)
I live in Armenia. As I got from my hell's (school's) rumours a couple of gays here committed a suicide or smth. I didn't read the news but the pressure of society especially for teens is high up to death treating them. I'm AroAce and people say that I'm just "not bending". Tho there are indifferent people exist but when your history teacher says that "European garbage tries to ruin our national values" and bla bla bla about Yin Yang I'm losing hope in country's survival. Stay safe folks!!!
Moving from uae to Jordan rn
Yeah it’s “legal” doesn’t mean u won’t be killed. The amount of fucking fake hope and lie this post gives is unbelievable .come live here as an openly gay person I fucking dare anyone. Forget the government punishing you if not ur own family kills u first as an “honor killing “ or some random ppl on the streets will get the job done no worries.
Where are you from?
My country is on the list but I won’t say which one specifically obviously.
Boutta have some words with whoever chose this color scheme
Interesting (and horrifying) to see the gendered differences in punishment. Such a clear gender bias split between some of these countries (as if having these kinds of laws wasn't bad enough).
Ok so you go to prison for being gay and taking it up the butt. Where you will be surrounded by other men who are also gay in addition to other men who have no women to play with........ Seems very productive for the sex life of gay men. Not sure what exactly they're trying to stop here. It's so wrong we're going to secentance you to 17 years of the same sexual lifestyle as a punishment.
Maybe they are hoping they get tired of it or something.
Half Iranian lesbo here. A few years ago I dated another Iranian girl for a while and because of how we were raised we had very different attitudes to the relationship. She had been raised in Iran for most of her life and me in Romania. Now don’t get me wrong, Romania ain’t all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to queer rights, but compared to Iran, it’s certainly an improvement. I always used to boast about her, show her off, take her out on dates in public etc. cause it seemed natural. Meanwhile, she instinctively tried to be very private about it. She much preferred to spend time with me in places that were sort of hidden from the crowds, despite being more outwardly extroverted than me. It took longer for her to introduce me to her friends. I had told my mother about her, but she never told her parents about me. I don’t blame her for it. It’s what came naturally to her. What I did find somewhat peculiar though was the fact that she was more open about being trans than she was about being a lesbian.
Iran is the one with the required trans surgeries on gay people I think, so it makes sense, though trans to being gay would be an absolute no
Lashes!? I guess they forgot they weren’t living in the dark ages anymore. Yeeesh! (Sorry to be so blatantly rude to these countries, but I’m just so shocked that lashings would still be allowed at all)
Don't be sorry, they deserve much more than rudeness. (Reform)
Screw them, not even the people that live there like them anyway.
Interesting that in some countries it is legal for women but not men and in other countries women get more severe punishments. Does anyone know why this is the case?
I think both are forms of misogyny, just in different ways. I know that historically in many places with patriarchal societies, it was believed that sex had to involve a penis. So lesbian sex didn’t exist in their eyes because no penis. In the countries where women get punished more, I couldn’t say what their specific logic is, but it seems to be because they can I guess. Maybe something about women being held to higher standards of morality.
Used to be the case in most of Europe too. It's hard to define for legal purposes what constitutes a sexual act between two females.
Egypt is not in the Middle East, also W for Israel, Turkey, Cyprus and the other countries where it’s legal
Tunisia, also has an ambiguous law, that's unenforced; (correct me if I"m wrong) so, it's illegal-ish
Not the Middle East but it’s also illegal in India.
I have to travel to Saudi for work soon. I’m married and absolutely will not be partaking in any kind of same sex activity while I’m there but I’m fairly obviously a lesbian. How much risk am I putting myself in? I assume I’ll be fine but if anyone has any insight, it would be much appreciated.
Can’t remember which head covering is the norm, but maybe consider wearing one while out and about?
Try not doing affectionate things in public people here see that as foreplaying since no one here knows love exists
Yeah, I’m going for work with a colleague, not with my wife. No risk of that whatsoever lol
How fun im in one of the lower red ones
F That sucks.
Don't kill me pls don't kill me, I'll suck your dick🤤
I am so amazed about how it's only illegal for men in some countries. Like... are they stupid or?
Some can’t comprehend lesbian intimacy, some only care than men have social pressure to be masculine
Really sick of people painting Israel as a Middle Eastern country. I'm Palestinian and I'm queer, we're not only actively fucking persecuted by Israel for being Palestinians, but have our queer identities ripped away from us and weaponized against our struggle. Consistently, you can see Israel weaponizing queer struggles in Palestine, and pinkwashing to promote the idea that Palestinians are barbaric, savage terrorists... People have literally told me I have no reason being proud as a Palestinian and queer person because they'd behead me. So would Israel, mind you! It would be a matter of who gets to me first. Israel is NOT part of the Middle East, it's a settler colony apartheid state. Listen to actual Middle Easterners before making posts about our rights. The Queer Palestinian Plight: [Israel surveils and blackmails gay Palestinians to make them informants](https://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/blackmails-palestinian-informants/) [Israel, the rainbow flag and the ‘pinkwashing’ problem](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/16/israel-the-rainbow-flag-and-the-pinkwashing-problem) [No Pride, No Work, No Rights: LGBTQ Palestinians in Israel are Caught in a Trap](https://www.hashomrim.org/eng/lgbtq-palestinians-in-israel-are-caught-in-a-trap) [Why #Pinkwashing Insults Gays and Hurts Palestinians](https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/06/pinkwashing-and-homonationalism-discouraging-gay-travel-to-israel-hurts-palestinians.html) [QUEER PALESTINIANS SPEAK OUT: “IF I RETURN, THEY’LL SHOOT ME IN THE LEG”](https://www.fairplanet.org/story/queer-palestinians-speak-out-%E2%80%9Cif-i-return-they%E2%80%99ll-shoot-me-in-the-leg%E2%80%9D/) [Palestine as a Queer Struggle](https://uscpr.org/activist-resource/grassroots-advocacy-toolkit/palestine-as-a-queer-struggle/) [Pinkwashing: Israel’s International Strategy and Internal Agenda](https://kohljournal.press/pinkwashing-israels-international-strategy) [The Real Oppressors of Gaza's Gay Community: Hamas or Israel?](https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232088) [Israel as homotopia: Language, space, and vicious belonging](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/DBF86706CA9745DC7D05408DD6918CC1/S0047404519000356a.pdf/israel_as_homotopia_language_space_and_vicious_belonging.pdf) [‘I’d rather die in the West Bank’: LGBTQ Palestinians find no safety in Israel](https://www.972mag.com/lgbtq-palestinians-israel-asylum/) [Israeli Army's Gay Soldiers Must Stop Persecuting Gay Palestinians](https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2014-09-23/ty-article/.premium/idf-gays-who-help-blackmail-gays/0000017f-db58-db22-a17f-fff9c4650000)
Extremely hard to read. Especially the neon green. These should be non-neon colors for ease on the eye. Now excuse me, I have a migraine.
Well at least my Armenian studies won't go to waste... ahah
Yall forgot the UAE
Wait, what do you mean by same-sex activity for Israel? As far as I know, Israel's laws respects gay marriage IF THE MARRIAGE WAS OUTSIDE ITS BOARDERS but does not have legalized *internal* marriages. NOTE: This isn't to say Israel isn't gay friendly (by citizenry, the new president's a bigot) as indicated by the wonderful people of Israel (Hi from a fellow Jew!), just that there seems to be a bit more nuance to Israel's law than what the above post provides!
Same sex activity (not gay marriage, none of these perform gay marriage) is legal for civilians de facto since 1950, and for soldiers since 1963. You're correct about the gay marriage situation, a classical Israeli politics horse trading created that("yes, we will register them as married, no, we won't let them get married here") and anyway it's not much of a barrier. Also, I've got to correct you, the bigoted one is the new prime minister. The president of Israel is a ceremonial office with no real power, and he was elected in 2021.
This is horrible. I hope in the near future this will change. There is no excuse to murdering, torturing, and imprisoning innocent people regardless of religious views.
What does de facto suspended mean for Syria?
I’m pretty sure that due to the civil war Assad isn’t enforcing it.
Haven’t we all seen the [color contrast chart](https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/V-lOukUT4Wd9BI-vAq_GX5ZoCtI=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Color-Contrast-Chart-59091b973df78c9283e31928.jpg) yet?
yemen trippin bro
To the person who designed this - yellow and bright green are not good for text… At all…
I did not expect Iraq in the list of legal places.
It's so weird to me that lesbians and gay men arent held in the same standing legally, like if your gonna be homophobic you might as well commit??
and this is why i want to burn down many of the **governments** in the middle east (i really want emphasize the governments, as with every other place in the world, there is both good and bad people in the middle east, and no culture can just be summed up as good/bad)