out in alexandria

"Are you married?"

It is a common enough question for a woman traveling alone in the Middle East. But here, sitting alone in a car with H, the boyfriend of an Egyptian friend I just met that day in Alexandria, I find myself unexpectedly nervous. Because the inevitable follow-up question, "Why not?" is coming, and I'm not sure what reaction I would get to the answer I want to give, "Because I'm gay and it's illegal."

So I dodge and mutter something about not having found the right person, but feel a bit cowardly for doing so.

But then, at dinner, I get another chance. "Do men have to be gay to join CODEPINK?" H asks. It's not a question I expected to encounter. No, I reply, they can be gay or straight, they just have to be cool with women being in charge.

Then I think, This is absurd. What the hell am I afraid of? So, before the conversation can move on, I interject: "You know, I'm gay. And the reason I hesitated earlier when you asked me if I was married is because, in my home state, California, it's illegal for gay people to get married."

The response was immediate and shared by everyone at the table--M and N, my friends from the Gaza delegation, but also H and two of his friends. "That's ridiculous! Who cares if you're gay? You should be able to do whatever you want."

Then the conversation moved on to some other topic and I felt a bit silly for having been nervous about anything at all...and, when I thought about it more, a bit ashamed. I had conceded to a tiny bit of Islamophobia, assuming that I might get a homophobic reaction from these people, who are cosmopolitan, well-educated and engaged in politics--the kind of people with whom, in the US, I would not give a second thought to being open about my sexual orientation.

The whole incident made me think a lot about solidarity, and what it means to really see someone as your equal. I would never accept anything less than full respect for my identity and my rights from any friend or comrade of mine in the US. So why then would I expect anything less from my new friends in Alexandria? Did I somehow think that the ability to understand an argument for equal rights--anyone's equal rights--stops at the borders of the Muslim world?

Too often, the image that reaches the US of the Arab world is limited to a one-word description. (Muslim = fundamentalist, women = oppressed, Palestinians = terrorists, etc.) But if more Americans actually traveled there, they would soon discover that the Middle East is a far more open, diverse, heterogeneous and cosmopolitan society than you would ever imagine given its portrayal in the US media (including Hollywood, but that is a rant for another blog post.)

I'm not trying to suggest, at all, that there is no homophobia (or sexism) in the Middle East, on both an institutional and an individual level. There are still plenty of people who live closeted lives--for the same reasons many people in the US do, because they are afraid their families won't accept them and they need their families for financial and/or social support. But the Middle East is not a reactionary monolith, either. Cities are more liberal than rural areas, and there are all kinds of regional differences based on everything from physical geography to the strength of different political traditions to variations in religion and ethnic makeup. Gee, sounds just like the US, doesn't it? Surprise! We're all not that different from one another!

P.S. Look at all the labels I get to use on this post!