lesbian visibility Week… Sarah Hegazy is gone and her sun has not set!

lesbian visibility Week is an opportunity to shed light on lesbian and transgender women and to raise their voices, who reject male dependency and heterosexual guardianship. We can also consider this occasion a sanctuary for lesbians to feel safe, and to appear in a world that still treats them with discrimination and inequality, and deals […]

OFFICIAL STATEMENT: DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE AFFECTS GEM’S BENEFICIARIES/TEAM IN SYRIA & TURKEY

On 6 February, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake centered in Gaziantep, Turkey heavily impacted Southern Turkey and Northern Syria. This earthquake was followed by other large-scale earthquakes throughout the day, causing more than 6,000 buildings to crumble. With Guardians of Equality Movement (GEM) headquartered in Gaziantep, our staff and beneficiaries have been highly affected by this earthquake. […]

EFFECTS OF DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKES ON SYRIAN LGBTQIA+ letter

On 6 February, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake centered in Gaziantep, Turkey heavily impacted Southern Turkey and Northern Syria, killing over 47,000 people and injuring thousands. This has since been followed by 6.4 and 5.8-magnitude earthquakes on 20 February in areas that were already severely destroyed. With Guardians of Equality Movement (GEM) operating from Gaziantep and remotely […]

Collapsed roofs and shattered dreams

In the past few months, I interviewed several members of the LGBTQIA community in northern and north-western Syria, to shed the light on an entirely overlooked community, in a land marked by one direction and one color. My aim was to break the stigma surrounding them and highlight their existence in this area, which is […]

What is pansexuality, and how is it different from Bisexuality

 Pansexuality By the beginning of the twentieth century, knowledge about human nature has developed far beyond human imagination, especially if we compare the knowledge level we have nowadays to how it was in previous centuries. On one hand, it adopted many simple pre-judgments due to lack of knowledge, and the religious ideological thoughts’ dominance and […]

An experience with “lesbian stigma”

It is 6 months since Lesbian Visibility week 2022 and we wanted to share how we hope its intentions might continue to impact social change for the LGBTQIA+ community til its 2023 return. In the spirit of this, we keep sharing Lesbian experiences from the region , creating a platform for their voices and greater […]

Opinion piece of Subhi Nahas

Opinion Article The world around us has changed drastically in the past few decades, and so have people’s opinions on so many different societal issues, including being homosexual (gay). In the past, homosexuality was seen as a sin or an illness, but now it is seen as something that should be accepted by society in […]

Commemorating Pride Month 2022

Every year in June, Pride Month is celebrated to recognise the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning individuals have made in local, national, and international settings. This month, celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBTQIA+ Pride Month events attracting millions of participants worldwide. Memorials are held during this […]

This organization is helping Syria’s LGBTQI community. Here’s how.

Source: Atlantic Council Globally, the LGBTQI community faces stigma, discrimination, and acts of persecution. For those in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), these challenges aren’t just constructed from cultural and community factors but enforced and exacerbated by law. In the Syrian context, Articles such as 520 in the penal code criminalize homosexuality, condemning those found […]

FROM SYRIA TO TURKEY: A JOURNEY OF CONCEALED TRUTHS

Source: MY.KALI Words by Lara Bellone d’Altavilla1Illustrations by: Aude Nasr  When most Syrian LGBTQ persons flee to Turkey, they don’t do so seeking safety for their sexual orientation. Rather, they flee seeking safety from the conflict and violence that has endured in Syria for over 10 years. The ongoing conflict has left 2.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs) […]