feature image photo by IBRAHIM CHALHOUB/AFP via Getty Images

Title Inspired by Nadine Naber’s “Arab Feminism is Not an Oxymoron”

In my senior year of undergrad, I watched Nadine Naber’s TedTalk: “Arab Feminism is Not an Oxymoron” for one of my courses. In it, Naber discusses the disappointing and narrow discourse granted to SWANA women in discussions of “Arab feminism.” She rightfully points out the Orientalist and Islamaphobic norms often fraught in the view of the diverse cultures, ethnicities, religions, and regions in the SWANA world as a homogenized “Arab and Muslim” front rather than acknowledging the full range and complexities of SWANA and the feminist movements within it.

Naber states poignantly: “Why are we so eager to accept the idea of a backwards foreign culture that oppresses women? Is it because that’s easier than confronting the very devastating impact the US war on terror has had on women in countries like Iraq?…and when are feminists in the US going to start to define war as a form of violence against women?”

What Naber has articulated so clearly here represents a framework I argue could be applied to many concepts regarding “Western vs non-Western” discourse and understandings of identity, culture, and the fight towards collective liberation. As a nonbinary Syrian-Palestinian lesbian who was born and raised in the West, it is this exact tension I have come to terms with my identity within. It is this tension I also hope to name and challenge as it applies to queer liberation in the SWANA world, most especially as it has to do with lesbianism and transness.

The reason I am focusing on lesbians and gender-nonconforming identities specifically is for the same reason Naber titled her speech “Arab Feminism is Not an Oxymoron”. In the West, decades of propaganda have resulted in overarching notions and stereotypes of the SWANA world as being uniquely terrible to women and downright murderous to the queer community (though I have found that these discussions often center cis gay men without any acknowledgements of lesbians, GNC, or other queer experiences).

It has become a common talking point to imply that queer folks fighting for collective liberation in SWANA are doing so counter-intuitively. Many of these misplaced notions have emerged due to the focus on sensationalised events regarding homophobia in the SWANA region. Horrific tales of violence and killing of queer individuals are written about at length and spread far and wide, while our nuanced lives, histories, and resistance in the fight towards liberation are actively erased, censored, and ignored.

Though they are presenting themselves as advocates for the LGBTQ community, those who spew these arguments rarely ever acknowledge that queer and trans folks already live in these places, in and out of the closet, fighting for their liberation in various capacities. They also often ignore their perpetuation of hatred, via their racist, aggressive, and violent intent towards the queer and trans people that they are criticizing. Fascinatingly, the state of homo/transphobia in the West is often also left unmentioned in these discussions.

To deny that misogyny and homo/transphobia exist in the SWANA world would simply be false, but to present these structures as inherently “more evil” when within non-Western contexts is harmful, unproductive, and downright inaccurate. It is rooted in clear bigotry and the inherent belief we are superior to our non-Western counterparts. Especially in the wake of America’s current mask off spiral into fascism (a route it has been on arguably since its inception) the attack on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ existences and histories is increasingly palpable and concerning.

Additionally — and as pointed out by Naber re: feminism — to dilute arguments about queer liberation in the SWANA world as solely freeing queer SWANA individuals from a ‘Big Bad Arab Monster’ ignores the true enemy: decades of destruction, violence, genocide, and societal disenfranchisement (at every level) imposed on the SWANA world by Western imperialism and colonialism. It is a distraction from the true issues faced by marginalized communities and another form of discrimination as we prescribe to them what we feel their freedom should look like.

The invention of homophobia is an inherently Western, colonialist ideal that was forced upon the SWANA world (and many, if not most, non-Western cultures affected by colonialism/imperialism). It is a twisted tale of irony that the communities most often being forced to answer for homophobia did not care for or create its existence in the first place.

In reality, the difficulties of navigating queerness in these contexts includes fighting against and actively dealing with the lived realities of Western violence, occupation, apartheid, colonialism and imperialism — all of which present particularly monumental difficulties for folks existing at the intersection of  multiple marginalized identities. To dismantle these oppressive structures of homophobia and transphobia would require the destruction of the Empire and its practices as a whole.

Queer folks have been and always will remain at the forefront of liberation movements, whether it’s known explicitly or not. This remains true in the SWANA world. For example: The current fight towards a Free Palestine is in itself a fight for feminist and queer liberation, because true collective liberation includes freedom and justice for ALL. Queer individuals, feminists, and allies on the ground have reiterated their fight as anticolonial and antifascist, a fight towards total liberation from oppressive structures that they remain on the frontlines of.

As revolutionarily articulated by the Black feminists who wrote the Combahee River Collective Statement (1974): Because Black women in America have been forced to exist at the bottom of the societal hierarchy, their total liberation would necessitate that all other marginalized peoples are free. The same goes for queer and trans Palestinians in Palestine; true Palestinian liberation necessitates that Palestinian women, queer, and trans folks are free from all structures of oppression.

It is again important to acknowledge that the SWANA world is a vastly diverse region, made up of dozens of unique cultures, peoples, and of course: struggles. What a queer or trans person is dealing with in Palestine may vary from what a queer or trans person is dealing with in Sudan may vary from what a queer or trans person is dealing with in Saudi Arabia, and so on. Many of our struggles are similar, and all of them are of course connected by being the same fight towards collective liberation, but it is important we do not accidentally fall into Orientalising our varied lived experiences in these discussions.

Similarly, there exists unique experiences within the queer community of SWANA diaspora around the world, each dealing with their specific nuanced layers of the cultures of where they reside diasporically, the cultures of their specific SWANA identities, and their queer and/or trans identity, all in one. This is not an existence that any one person can speak of or for in full, a reality I am heavily aware of in writing pieces like these. I felt it important to note this, seeing as examples I often discuss are from the places in the world I am from. I know there are so many more stories to be told and struggles being faced throughout the SWANA region and diaspora. May they all receive the visibility and respect they deserve.

Returning to discussions of feminism, it is important to acknowledge the deeply patriarchal structures present throughout the SWANA world, which did exist in pre-colonial contexts (albeit in a different fashion than we know them to exist now). Something that is frustrating as an AFAB person from this culture is the erasure of countless efforts towards gender liberation in SWANA by those in the West. When queerness is discussed in SWANA (both internally and externally), the effects of this patriarchy remains pervasive and often results in queer SWANA discourse, academia, and representation centering and amplifying the (majority cis) queer male experience. SWANA lesbians and GNC individuals are often not mentioned, or perhaps only as a passing thought or singular sentence, in these discussions.

We are often left out of interviews, articles, books, studies, media, and images of queer SWANA folks. Our lives, loves, and contributions to the world are seldom amplified or given a spotlight. There are without a doubt many amazing experiences I’ve been blessed to have, witness, and will hopefully witness in the future — but what I’m trying to articulate here is a deeper systemic issue that many queer BIPOC women and GNC people have historically had to deal with in our communities.

Though the current state of our representation would have one think otherwise, the lesbian identity has a long established and documented history in the SWANA world, one that spans 400 years prior to the first documentation of queer SWANA men. While again, sources dedicated solely to folks of our identity are few and far between, there have been consistent efforts within our communities for increased SWANA lesbian and GNC visibility, academia, storytelling, and preservation.

As a volunteer at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in NYC, focusing specifically on this type of SWANA archiving, countless hours of my life are spent thinking about and trying to preserve queer SWANA history, in historic, present, and future tenses. I have witnessed firsthand just how prevalent our existences have been throughout documented history — and just how much effort is put into its dismissal.

Gender diversity (and what we might define as genderqueerness or transness, acknowledging the labeling of such as inherently colonial nature as well) has an even wider and deeper standing within our history. From intersex ancient deities, to gender nonconforming djinn, to medieval androgyny, to “cross-dressing” AFABs in early 1900s Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon — beyond binary ideas and manifestations of identities not only exist, but are deeply integral to SWANA history as a whole.

Unsurprisingly, there is also documentation and known perpetuation of the purposeful erasure and destruction of art, stories, and histories of queer SWANA women and GNC folks in particular, either as results of the rise in conservatism in SWANA (across many faiths / cultures), or by those colonial and imperialist powers which seek to destroy our existences as a whole. The specific attack on and destruction of libraries, archives, and schools/universities in countries like Palestine, for example, are an active arm of the genocide and cultural erasure of our peoples, which of course have deep impacts on the preservation of intersectional identities and histories in our cultures.

Modern, contemporary sources about SWANA lesbians and GNC very much exist and are still being produced, though they are often focused on discussing the necessity of these projects due to how little there is available to the world. I have found myself reading multiple sources by SWANA lesbians or GNC individuals who are speaking solely about how invisibilized, ignored, or invalidated our identities are (well aware of the irony here, thank you).

To this day, it remains a large task to find, create, discuss, or otherwise focus on queer SWANA — especially lesbian and GNC — resources. These barriers present unique challenges to an already intersectional identity, adding in accessibility and visibility concerns, which often then introduces  class concerns. Those who have access to higher education institutions with research databases, for example, are more likely to find and engage with resources than someone who does not.

In a bit of good news, and as someone who has only beared witness to a small fraction of this progression in the last few years, it seems as though there is an exponential growth in our public, global, documented existences and experiences. Social media and the internet have been pivotal in these matters, allowing for international access to sources by and about people of our identity. Additionally, and as has always been true throughout history, underground communities exist and are doing immeasurable amounts of work for folks within our communities and for our movements as a whole.

Having started an ongoing ethnographic work about this identity myself in 2022, I have had the honor of meeting dozens of queer and trans folks from our background the last couple of years. Time and time again, whether out or not, I have witnessed firsthand how folks of our identities remain at the frontlines of participating in vital work needed for collective liberation — in and outside of the West, across a variety of struggles.

And though I have spent much of this work focused on sources and media by and about our identity, I feel it also important to note that that is not all we are. One’s value is not determined by how much proof there is of your existence. Nor is it determined by how much power you have as an identity in respect to other groups in this hugely unjust world. I’d argue one’s value is determined by oneself, is built upon by all those who are in community with you, and all of those who came before you and are to come.

SWANA lesbians and GNC people are everywhere, doing everything. We have been around since some of the earliest known civilizations and remain in every pocket of the Earth. We are your neighbors, friends, family, and loved ones. We exist in infinite realities, in infinite unique bodies. Our ancestors fearlessly trailblazed the way for us in so many ways, and we have continued their legacy in resisting and persevering amidst a lifetime of tribulations. We find one another and love one another and protect one another in as many ways we know how.

There are many privileges I have and sacrifices I have made in order to live the way I do as someone of my specific background. And it is due to this specific positionality that I find it important to discuss queer SWANA women and GNC issues more explicitly. To acknowledge our existence for the deeply rich, historic, natural, all-encompassing picture that it is. To name our identity as anything but an oxymoron.

It is my firm belief that in time, we will continue to unearth more of our nuanced histories and tales of existences, to find new ways to amplify and create all of the resources and stories by, about, and for us that we deserve. Most importantly, to create a world in which we are able to live freely in our full truths; outside of any systems of oppression.

I hope that one day, all those who deserve recognition, celebration, and preservation of their work and lives, are able to experience them in full. Until then, our fights will continue in the plethora of ways they are now, until total freedom is achieved.

Arab lesbianism is not an oxymoron; it never has been, and never will be. To think otherwise would be the most oxymoronic thing of all. Long live the resistance, and glory to all our martyrs.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!