By Taleen El Gharib | Junior Editor of Local News
Leading Beirut–based LGBTQ+ rights organization Helem, established back in 2001, recently published a report–the first of its kind in the region–assessing the political participation of Lebanon’s LGBTQ+ community.
Apart from the social, legal, and economic marginalization faced by the LGBTQ+ community, the declining economic situation and growing momentum towards political participation since the beginning of the crisis placed politics at the forefront of their struggle. While political challenges were not new to Lebanon’s LGBTQ+ community, the crisis upheaved a slew of concerns. The assessment published by Helem surveyed 250 participants from different backgrounds and revealed a myriad of issues they have experienced ahead of the 2022 parliamentary elections, including voter suppression, mistreatment, violence, and a lack of representation.
Voting polls proved to be among the most dangerous places for the LGBTQ+ community. The report revealed a great deal of mistreatment that occurred at the hands of party representatives, voting officials, and other voters against the participants. The participants reported the following: verbal abuse and/or bullying by officials (75%), ridicule and dismissal by officials (50%), verbal abuse and/or bullying by other voters (50% ), physical assault and/or violence by officials (25%), physical abuse and/or violence by other voters (25%), and prevention from voting by party representatives (25%).
Apart from the direct mistreatment experienced by the participants, which alone is enough to discourage them from participating in future elections, candidates of the 2022 parliamentary elections showcased major gaps in their electoral campaigns by either regarding LGBTQ+ matters as an afterthought or publicly and blatantly refusing to represent the community. MP Waddah Sadek, who ran alongside Change MPs before announcing that he no longer associates with the bloc, publicized his stance against queer visibility and promised to fight attempts to lobby same–sex marriage in parliament. The homophobic sentiment in the country, currently backed by Minister of Interior Bassam Mawlawi and religious authorities, gained traction over the past few months. At the height of these attacks on LGBTQ+ freedoms was the emergence of a group called “Jnoud El–Rab“, or Soldiers of God, who have contended and publicly threatened the community (among other marginalized communities).
Members of the LGBTQ+ community are being forced to make a choice between exercising their right to political participation and sacrificing their freedoms in light of exclusive and homophobic electoral campaigns. Helem remains the largest and one of the few organizations that have spearheaded the advocacy for queer rights in Lebanon, fighting back with legal means to ensure the safety of the community. The organization also offers a boot camp, which is a special program focused on raising awareness, empowering, and educating members of the community and its allies, and family support, which is a support group for parents of LGBTQ+ youth to interact with one another.
Despite the sublime work done by Helem and other adjacent organizations, there is only moving forward for the community with allowing members to exercise their rights safely, setting inclusive campaigns, and garnering political support that prioritizes the agenda of the community as a marginalized group. While addressing the crisis and the overall well–being of the population is of great concern, the freedoms and safety of minorities should not become of low priority for the sake of the majority.