SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, 11/25 (IPS) – Mostly people in their twenties sitting on a terrace in the shade of a beautiful grove of trees: black clothes, earrings, tattoos and some purple streaks in their hair .
It may be a trendy cafe in Berlin, Paris or any other European capital, but the prayerful call of the sunset reminds us that we are in Sulaymaniyah. After Erbil, it is the second city in the Iraqi Kurdish Autonomous Region.
We cannot reveal the exact coordinates of the cafe, nor the full name of the person who brought us here. She wears a pair of white shorts and a t-shirt- and shows off a rainbow bracelet on her left wrist. She asked to be called Kween. “It’s just the queen with ak for the Kurds,” she explained. Kween is a transgender woman.
The youngest of five children in a Kurdish family in Diyala, a district in the east of the country, the 33-year-old Kurdish woman admitted to IPS that she was “a boring man” in first 25 years of life.
“I have learned to suppress my needs. However, the first time I dressed up as a woman in my mother’s outfit and also put on makeup was when I was 5 years old,” she recalls. In the dress, she added, “I feel who I am and who I have always been.”
But that freedom mainly enjoyed in solitude has its price. How to forget the scene where her brother beat her when she was first arrested, at the age of six; the humiliation and bullying she suffered at school…
She was almost killed when she was 24 years old. Someone contacted her on the Internet and asked to meet on the outskirts of the city. But they are five individuals, waiting to give her a beating. Completely paralyzed from the beatings and covered in mud and blood, Kween gathered all his strength to make his way to the local magistrate’s office.
“You have two choices: either file a complaint and dishonor your family forever, or simply stop what you’re doing,” the judge blurted to her. When she got home, she couldn’t say what she’d been through, or best of all, why. Even today, no one in Diyala knows that Kween is a woman.
Despite all the difficulties, she has been working for several years with a foreign NGO focused on protecting vulnerable groups. Among other projects, she’s working on a list of Kurdish words to talk about LGBTI collective rights without being offensive.
An example: Hawragazkhwaz (literally “someone who is attracted to members of their own sex”) is, by far, the only inclusive form for “homosexuality;” away from commonly used terms including ideas like “pedophilia” or “rape”.
Kween hasn’t decided on surgery or hormones yet, but she doesn’t have much time for that either. She said work at the NGO and finding a place in society for members of the LGBTI community take up most of her time.
“If I have a mission in life, this is it.”
“Immoral behavior”
A transgender woman was beaten, burned alive and thrown in the trash; attackers torture, then kill a gay man while his partner is forced to witness; a lesbian was stabbed to death when asked to stop her “immoral behavior”.
These are just three of many that have been included in Human Rights Watch report on the LGBTI collective in Iraq published in March 2022. The kidnapping, rape, torture and murder of homosexuals at the hands of armed groups, “usually by the security forces of state”, was also reported.
“Members of this community live under the constant threat of being captured and killed by Iraqi police, and with complete impunity,” said Rasha Younes, a researcher with HRW, in the report.
The image of homosexuals being pushed from their homes by the Islamic State is still imprinted in people’s minds. Also the ones Doski Azada Kurdish transgender woman, posted on Instagram before her body was found in a ditch last February. She was murdered by her own brother.
“I know a lot of people who never go out on the street,” Varin, a 23-year-old gay activist told IPS from the same terrace. Thanks to the Internet, she discovered that, like her, there are people who do not feel identified with any gender expression.
The activist works in a swimming pool, but her chemistry studies have opened up job opportunities for her in Qatar that she doesn’t want to miss.
“I went to the job interview dressed as a decent woman and, of course, with long sleeves so the tattoo wouldn’t show,” she burst out laughing.
Varin points out “there are about 30 members” in the LGBTI community in Sulaimaniyah. They meet at cafes like this. Social media also makes it easier to get to know each other.
Do they organize protests? No, it’s too dangerous. In fact, the mural she would choose to pose for our photo was vandalized (it would be completely destroyed a few days later).
Despite the threats, this Kurdish city has become the safest space in the country for members of the LGBTI community. Many gay people from the south of the country seek refuge in cities like Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurds.
Situation is not meant comparablebut Varin stressed that Erbil remains a very conservative city, “one of those cities where time stands still during Ramadan and where you must never let your guard down.”
suicidal tendencies
In April 2021, some young men from Sulaimaniyah were arrest “for being homosexual and for their immoral behavior.” That’s how the head of the campaign labeled it in front of the press. Sulaimaniyah police declined to answer questions from IPS. However, harassment seems to apply to anyone who dares to show any form of support.
That is the case of Rasan, a local NGO repeatedly forced to answer to justice for “advancing the LGBTI community.” They are still awaiting trial following the most recent lawsuit, filed by a member of the Kurdish parliament.
From their office in Sulaimaniyah, Tanya Kamal Darwesh, director of Rasanassured IPS that their mission is not to promote the LGTBI community but to “raise public awareness of it.” But what’s even more worrying, she added, is that the arrest of members of the collective remains common currency in the Iraqi Kurds’ lands.
“Instead of accepting the existence of these people, they insist on criminalizing them: they are accused of prostitution, drug trafficking or anything else to kick them out,” the human rights activist denounce.
“All the clans, parties, leaders, both religious and political, are united in their hatred of eccentric group. They often rely on religious issues to justify violence, or they simply turn it into politics,” concludes Darwesh.
Their defenses are overwhelming, and the psychological impact of intolerance on this group translates into cases of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and even suicidal tendencies.
It was a diagnosis brought to IPS via videoconference by a trauma psychologist, who did not want to give his real name in the interview. She’s been working with victims of sexual violence and torture in the Middle East for over a decade, and she wants to avoid the veto at all costs.
In addition to attacks on almost every level, she also highlighted the risk of being “removed from the labor market, or even from their own families in an area where they play such an important role.” “.
After many trips to the area, the expert had the opportunity to meet Varin and Kween in person. “Beyond hope for the community, they also provide a space to ask questions,” she stressed. “Just by being obviously weird, did they show great courage.”
© Inter Press Service (2022) — All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service
