Brief Intro to Iran’s Gay Blogging Recent History

I Am Gay.  I am Lonely.

It Was Not Always Like This.

On the turn of the 20st century Western culture found its way into Iran. Huge households shrunk to fit smaller group of family-members. That too, later on, gave way to the nuclear family; husband and a wife and their children would be considered “family” and lived under one roof. Thus, gay men, invisible in huge households among the extended families living together, and singled out in the setting of nuclear family, shied away into a secluded lifestyle and remained so until 1979 when a witch-hunt begun to spot, expose, and execute them; large number of homosexual men fled to the West and became refugees.

The last Shah of Iran was relaxed about homosexuality. Homosexuals lived peacefully and fully, as artist, writer, film-director, show-host, and pup-singer; first public appearance of a Gay Rights activist, Saviz Shafaee, took place in Shiraz University when he presented a paper discussing Homosexuals’ Civil Rights in a seminar. The talk wasn’t picked up again until two decades later, by gay bloggers who pioneered on-line activism in order to escape silenced lives, under shadows of Shari’a law[MP1] .

Gay community lived in disguise, hiding their true selves from everyone, parents, siblings, friends, the law and its enforces, at all times, day and night all through their lives. It was easier to confess to one’s parents and friends having been diagnosed with plague then coming out with homosexuality; and it was not safe, too, to confess. That would leave only one solution, to go one-line and have an on-line presence. That could serve in many ways. It was a refuge. And it was a possible tool for civil activism. It was an stage, and it was a rehearsal. And it gave plenty of time to escape, if one’s IP was exposed.

Speaking up on Cyberstage

Homosexual men reacted some 20 years later. Gay men took to dressing up against norms; teased masculinity with their plucked eyebrows; allowed body-language speak of their sexual orientation, and at the same time, denied links between appearance and sexual orientation; some took refuge in chat-rooms, home-pages, and on-line presence.

Blogger  Hamjensgera mentions in a post dated 2008, “long before weblogs were introduced to Iranian society, gay community appeared on-line via html homepages called yahoo clubs, or yahoo groups”. He mentions later the date goes back to 1995. Other bloggers confirm that they’ve seen the first gay-blog around 2001, belonged to man identified himself as Behrooz, who wrote on his first post: I Am Gay; updated a little while later: I Am Lonely.

Still many bloggers remember Epsilon Gay as the first gay-blogger, an inspiration to many who looked for ways to connect and express themselves. Epsilon Gay was interviewed sometimeduring 2005 by Dead Poets Society[i]. In that interview, Epsilon answered questions via email, talked about his feelings, and commented on his own blog.

Thus, 2001 was the beginning of a decade of hard work during which Iran’s lGBT community was formed and grew into a movement with tireless individuals orchestrating the challenge for decriminalization of homosexuality, initiating social justice for the queer community.

Blogs were considered real beings. Their birth and life span, untimely death, and suicide was closely followed and responded to by other gay bloggers.

Forming virtual families on-line

Weblogs of the LGBT community doesn’t serve only as alternative media to for civil activism; it is also used as virtual family-seeing on-line. Clusters of blogs and like-minded bloggers read each other daily and observed the mood in each weblog. If a blogger in their circle post about sorrow, or a recent attack, or shows suicidal hints/self-inflected wounds, they all gather in his comment-box, give advice, tips, and provide support. If a blogger doesn’t up-date for more than two weeks, everyone enquires of his whereabouts; According to the urgency of situation, reaction to the issues takes to the outside of the blogs to follow up. These bloggers presume the role of each other’s family members, each taking a role and acting upon it in their circle. They fill the gap that lack of actual parents/families brings upon the gay community. The strategy has worked fine and effectively, so long.

Home of all LGBT Blogs

During 2005 a Link Honar initiated to gather best of LGBT blog links. Right after, another weblog, calledKhane Honar (House of Art) launched to all links without exception, in blogfa[ii]. It moved to blogspot when it became unsafe to remain with a server within Iran and face removal.[iii]  This weblog served as reference, mentor, and touchstone for events and issues in the LGBT community from 2005 to 2008 until the original team decided to keep a neutral stance. During the course of the last two years, this weblog has recorded over 200 LGBT blog’s removed from the net by direct order of official authorities. Still, over 300 weblogs are actively writing today, more and more responding to general issues of the Iranian society, as a natural path to be involved and included in the main society with their true identity as homosexuals.

Weblogs subject to removal don’t receive warnings. They only see announcements such as this on face of the weblog: This weblog has been closed for one of these reasons: 1- Violating server’s code of rights. 2- By direct order of official authorities. 3- Posting immoral content or content contrary to law of the land. Sometimes, though, bloggers receive letters warning them to stop writing, or stop addressing certain issues. Rarely do they receive emails explaining in detail that they are under scrutiny and must stop all immoral activity on their weblogs[iv]. These emails are sent from police110, or Gerdab, or similar institution, via gmail or yahoo. Although it is known fact that emails sent through any general domain doesn’t directly com from the institution but from factions related to the institution, and that these warnings will not immediately result in interrogation or detention, still bloggers stop writing in their weblogs to prevent eventual arrest. IP is traceable via Iran’s phone company. Users of phone and internet services are tractable via phone-line, through log-storages by order of intelligent service.

Gay Poetry in Weblogs

Up until 2009 leading bloggers were poets promoting gay rights disguised in fine and magnificent poetry. Their poetry was picked up with their permission – after they stopped up-dating their weblogs- and published by Gilgamishan and distributed as E-book on Iranian Queer Library. Today the majority of leading blogs belongs to those with social activism in mind. One of such blogs Pesar (Boy) that started with porn-pictures 2005 or earlier, and switched to the role of big brother of the younger bloggers, advising, commenting, analyzing, and slightly mentoring.  In between these two type of blogs, there are those who aim at teaching matters of relationships, committed and long term relationship, and even sexual encounters to a generation that has no role model in, unlike the young of the main stream who confidently follow tradition and culture-based stages of social life. Gay couples specifically stress on promoting long term and committed relationships. Of course, their whereabouts is never known until they jump over the border into Turkey to seek asylum.

While Transsexuals have been nearly as active as Gay Bloggers, Where are lesbian bloggers? In a list of over 300 weblogs of gay and TS bloggers, only 5 or 6 belongs to lesbians, (do you have any thoughts about this? Where the lesbians and TS are? Would be interesting to develop) maybe mention Maha? What are the connections to the feminist movement? and that too, is only for matters of personal importance.

Transsexuals  own and moderate a vast number of weblogs, mostly about their longing for their real body, their real selves, and their chance to sex-change assignment. As they’re not hunted, as the gay community is, they engage in dealings with law-makers, and medical matters, grants, laws and regulations on name & gender changes in birth-certificates, and they have had their huge victories, and huge disappointments. They have endured life-threatening side effects of unsuccessful sex-change operations, and had been victims of rape and assault by their own doctors/surgeons who treated them. And bound via their weblogs, have strong networks outside the net, and on the net. Their dilemma is not the penal code, which is the Word of God, and un-changeable, rather, it is improvements on the social and welfare system, which is possible, and have been, and has come a long way during the last 30 years.

And lesbians? I wonder whether the strong and prolific women’s movement has had a suffocating effect over the lesbians.  Women’s movement in Iran stresses on such rights as the right to divorce, and the right to child custody, since arranged and enforced marriage is widespread since the 1979, and since marriage has turned, again, into the only social security for women that laws and regulations around it has become women’s most urgent concern. Lesbians, with their dismissal of the whole case, of the importance of such laws, their dislike of “women”ly concerns has alienated both women’s movement and lesbians from each other. Inside Iran, lesbian don’t approach the movement. Thus, being disconnected from the movement, and having misgivings about the women-members of the movement, didn’t allow lesbians a training in social activism. Mostly, lesbians keep to their own isolated circles, and their own “fun” gatherings. Weblogs belonged to lesbians mirror those gatherings, without a word about one aspect of marriage that hits lesbians directly, enforced marriages and honour-killings as a result.  Though the younger generation is walking slowly out of the privet corners and into the public sphere, mostly in diaspora.

Although there are activists outside of Iran, who work towards the LGBT rights, like myself and my colleagues in IRQO, and young civil activists who are busy taking LGBT reports to Human Rights Commission sessions at this moment, or write vigorously in essays and translations, but we all depend on the LGBT community inside of Iran; they are the ones who are working with all their might and face unimaginable horror and come up with new ideas every day and take one more step forward every day. They are the activists, and we are their messengers.

As the recent Iranian LGBT campaign slogan said: We Are Everywhere; the on-line gay activism and TS networking and the lesbian’s room of one’s own  on the net, the LGBT presence in the present social construct in Iran, and the-Iran-in-Diaspora, and our non-LGBT supporters among HRs is widespread enough that we can positively say, alas, Iran and our precious, unique Green Movement is going to earn democracy hand in hand with us, and soon.

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[i]   The weblog was dedicated to archiving all blogs belonged to gays. It was deactivated shortly after it opened, apparently because moderators received tips of tracing by government, but remained on web without update and was removed by order of official authorities on 2009 for violation of moral codes even though there were no posts besides  list of weblogs and type of content.

[ii] Iranian Server

[iii]  Non-Iranian server

[iv] Samples of these letters are kept in IRQO archive.

LGBT in Iran losing most basic human rights to a revolution gone wrong

LGBT community in Iran took its first steps towards earning civil rights some 35 years[1] ago, only, with a revolution gone wrong, not the community was stopped from proceeding, but it lost even its most basic human rights.

Right after the revolution, execution of Gay and Transsexuals began, by the ruling clergies, illegally; it was legalized on 1995 – two decades after the revolution – when Shari’a law, Islam’s Code of Conduct, legally replaced Iran’s penal code.

Article 110 – executions based on sodomy; Article 130 – executions based on lesbianism; Article 220 – granting fathers the right to kill their children, recognizing fathers as blood-owners of their own children, turned State and Society, equally, into executioners of gays, lesbians, bi, and transsexual population, and also the heterosexuals; clergies have used sodomy laws against those prisoners who couldn’t be executed or persecuted otherwise.

Shari’a law is not only responsible for killing of LGBT members of society in Iran, it is also the bases of generations of LGBT’s lack of parenting, education, carrier, housing, and overall security and safety.

The fact that no LGBT Iranian dares to introduce themselves as L.G.B.T by their own voice, face, name is because of the fear-mongering articles of Shari’s sodomy law.

Since the government in Iran doesn’t offer any explanation for hostility against the gay community, and because there are signs of lack[2] of relevant information in the government re homosexuals, I would like to quote a [3]gay blogger’s advise to Mr. AhmadiNejad when he was first elected president of Iran on 2005: I urge you, Sir, as the president of Iran, to employ a team of medical scientists and lawyer to study and investigate homosexuality, come up with a result of the studies, and present it; if they announce homosexuality illness or crime, we oblige; if they say it was not, you, as the state of Iran, oblige, and decriminalize homosexuality and let us live in peace. The task has not been undertaken by the government Iran, curiously.

While Mr. Ahmadi Nejad claims There Are No Homosexuals in Iran, his statesmen and spokespersons claim Homosexuals Are the Force behind Iran’s Green Movement. Question is: Do we not have homosexuals in Iran. Or, we do, and they’re so many and so capable as to be the back-bone of a huge civil movement as Iran’s Green Movement. Question is: what is considered crime, or what is considered crime on the part of homosexuals? Sexual orientation, or doubting patriarchy in the face of a primitive idealogy?

Living as a Queer woman over 50 years, a Queer poet over 20 years, directing a LGBT advocacy organization over 5 years, I have been witness to the horror they community in Iran goes through, everyday, not only by way of murders and executions but in everyday life of Not Living a simple, decent, dignified life human beings deserve in the realm in the Age of Democracy and Human Rights. And I am not talking only about those of our children who are disadvantaged and deprived, but also about gay professors, TS engineers, lesbian and gay specialist medical doctors, gay and lesbian poets, writers, artists, journalists and more, of highly accomplished status, all working inside Iran, who are victims in the hand of a hostile set of laws, and are most vulnerable.

I would like to offer the government of Iran to give account and explanation for violations of LGBT human rights. Or, to replace the primitive penal code of Shari’a law with constitutions based on 21^st century human rights. Or if either is not doable, I would like to suggest that Mr. Ahmadi Nejad, the head of state of Iran, in his trips to the UN, travel to the USA on the back of a camel. After all, we, the LGBT of Iran shouldn’t be only ones treated with the mind-set of the dark-ages of 1400 years back in history.

Saghi Ghahraman

Iranian Queer Organization – IRQO

2011

Attending event in New York protesting Mr. Ahamadi Nejad’s presence and stance in UN

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[1] Saviz Shafaei presented a paper in University of Shiraz, Iran, on Homosexual Rights on 1975.

[2] Ahmadi Nejad claims in Colombia University that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

[3] One gay blogger wrote a lengthy post when Mr. Ahmadi Nejad was elected as president on 2005, for his first term, and urged him to decriminalized homosexuality. His weblog was shut down a short while afterwards. The post is saved in IRQO archive.

…before a generation’s share of life-time is over

Jenny: You’re living in Canada now, how long have you been there?

Saghi: I left Iran on the end of summer 1983, three years after the revolution; spent about 5 years in Turkey waiting for refugee status and visa for Canada; arrived in Canada as refugee on December 1978.

Jenny: Why did you have to leave Iran?

Saghi: I was a political activist, working with a communist party and its women’s branch. On the spring of 1983 there was a crackdown on the party.  All leaders were captured over night. All members were obliged to report themselves and report everyone else they knew would have even remote connection to the party. Having a baby, I would be arrested with my child and as it was the usual in jails, my baby would be tortured in front me so I’d talk and name names. That, I thought, was impossible. I would tell them whatever they wanted me to. I didn’t dare to let any of it happen. I stayed in hiding for 5 months, and decided not to report myself. Through the mountains, borders of Iran and Turkey, I left Iran. I left with my baby and my husband at the time. We crossed five mountains on foot and on horseback and on the following day, we were in a village in Turkey; Still we had to keep hiding for another two months until we were told that it was safe to report ourselves to police in Turkey. We had to lie about the reason of our escape. If police knew I was involved with a communist party, we’d be deported right away. When in Iran, we lived apart, but in Turkey we had to be together all the time, and pretend to be an ordinary husband and wife with a child. It was a harsh 5 years.

Jenny: How old was your son?

Saghi: He was a year and a half. And I remember, my most graphic memory all the time I spent in hiding with him, was that I practiced in my mind to kill us both if I noticed agents had come for us. Agents were very much likely to find us, or, people we were spending time in their homes, could give us out. It was usual at that time; not only it was a religious duty for citizens (even of parents) to report on those who were considered “counterrevolutionary”, members of other political groups would expose  other groups’ members. Chances were high to be exposed, and arrested. I had to deal with it as the reality of those days.

Jenny: When you were in Turkey were you alone or did you have a community you could rely on?

Saghi: There were other Iranians, but I wasn’t close to them. I had to keep my affiliations and my beliefs secret. I also had to keep secrets from my husband. So, as a result, I had to be aware and extra cautious all the time, about everything, and keep everything secret. That meant I could be harassed by other Iranian refugees, or harassed by my husband, or the Turkey’s police, and there was no refuge, even inside the home.

Jenny: What was it like when you first got to Canada? Was it a feeling of freedom?

Saghi: I didn’t think about freedom, it was safety I was after. During the last months of our stay in Turkey I was at the end of my rope. Until we arrived in Toronto airport, I couldn’t believe it was over. I could lose the visa up until we got into the air port. My fear, on those days, were of my husband. I thought he would destroy the visa to keep us in Turkey. Turkey meant danger, hiding, fear, and Canada meant safety.

Jenny: Did you ever have to deal with any difficulties in Iran as a lesbian woman?

Saghi: I was not out, so no one had a clue. Only, I had personally put myself in a situation that was terribly exhausting. I didn’t have to get married, but I did, just because of absolute lack of information. And right after, I lost my chances of getting a divorce because after the revolution women lost their chances to claim a divorce. My efforts, my energy, was spent on keeping away from having a marital relationship. I was emotionally and physically harmed.

It continued all through the years we were in Turkey. When I came to Canada I published my poetry and fiction. My first story that was published talked about rape inside marriage. And that made the whole community roar against it. It was the first time a woman was writing about the issue, and about sexual relationships, and of relationships outside heterosexual norms, criticizing heterosexual encounters, picturing homosexual desire, and all these with explicit phrases and exact names of body parts which have never been mentioned in literature, by a woman.  There was huge commotion in the Iranian community. The result, for me, was a constant war with everyone, challenging not only people, but also traditions, rules, beliefs, habits. That, therefore, became my great cause.

Jenny: Did you first start writing when you got to Canada or did you start when you were younger?

Saghi: I come from a family of poets and writers. My mother wrote poetry. My grandmother wrote poetry. The first novel in contemporary Iran is written by a female cousin of my parents. Two great names in classic-style contemporary poetry are also cousins of my parents. So writing was something we were very familiar with, but what kind of  a writer, and with what price, was what I had to come up with, alone, on my own. I had started writing when I was fifteen, and it was good work. My work was very much approved by mentors, and accomplished. But I started writing very consciously of what it meant to be writing, when arrived in Canada. I can say that I put all I had into it.

Jenny: When did you start the Iranian Queer Organization and why did you want to start it?

Saghi: There was a need for an organized group who’d advocated and pledge for decriminalization of homosexuality objectively. But that was all I knew 5 or 6 years prior to 2006 when we decided to launch the organization. Before that, I had written and talked about homosexuality in poetry readings and panels. I was invited to be guest-editor of an issue of Hooman, the first gay magazine published in the West, on 2001/02, right before Hooman’s organizers dissolved the group. I had initiated to edit Maha, the first LGBT magazine published on-line inside Iran, but they responded that the work had to be conducted inside in Iran without links to the outside, for the sake of security of the team inside. They asked for an interview, instead. And the interview was a success. It was the first interview I had with an LGBT magazine, where questions could be openly and specifically about sexual orientation and my ideas on gender and identity. So these were my initial attempts to work towards organizing scattered efforts for LGBT rights in Iran.  I was aware of the need, and I was convinced that there was the need. But it was only after we started working and I was connected with the community in Iran that I knew the need was much greater than I could even imagine. So, the organization begun rolling, and hasn’t stopped since, and it has renewed itself along the way, and will, again, to adjust to the realistic needs inside Iran and in-line with the picture we get from the community inside. Since then, we’ve tried our best to look for insight and instruction from the activists in Iran who know better then us what would or should the next step be with regards to the work we do, raising awareness.

Jenny: Do you currently have access to people inside Iran who need help or is it more outside?

Saghi: of course, the whole idea is to be connected to the inside community. Without this connection, as LGBT family, we can’t work effectively. You see, those who flee Iran, and arrive in the West, need help. And help is available. Only we should chanal the help to the individual LGBT refugees. But, not everyone can flee Iran. Conditions for the LGBT inside Iran should change. Parents, teachers, classmates, co-workers must learn about the LGBT community and their human and civil rights. This is a task we have undertake together; those of us who live outside and those who live inside.

Jenny: Did it become more challenging after the 2009 elections?

Saghi: A lot more. Security issues have become unbearable. Sending a simple email can cost one’s life and freedom. Making sure every email is safe, and not a risk to the receiver, takes much longer than one can expect. Communications have become risky. But we find ways, and create ways, and keep connected. It is possible, of course, to work without on-line connections.

Jenny: For the people inside, does it feel like a part of it is getting any easier for young homosexuals in the country?

Saghi: When I was in Iran we could live our life without much fear because there were no laws against homosexuality; we weren’t hunted, like they’re now. We’d ذث shy to talk about it, and we’d be confused how to name it, but we weren’t hunted, harassed, as homosexuals in Iran have been during the past 30 years. All the horror started after the revolution, after Sharia law was taken as the basis of the constitution and penal code. Before, when a woman was known to be lesbian inside her own small circle of relatives and friends, the worst that could happen was that people would talk about her, spread rumors, or feel uncomfortable around her, but she could still live her life and have her relationships. What I mean is that the homosexual community lived in torturous hell during the years after the revolution. And slowly learned to fight for their own rights. They learned to be creative, initiative, playful, and find all sorts of ways to survive, but it is still far from easy, far from basic standards of human rights.

Jenny: Looking at the election in 2009 and the reform that’s followed, what do you see as the role of woman inside and outside Iran like yourself?

Saghi: Green movement wouldn’t have happened if women’s movement hadn’t started activities years before. Green movement imitated Iranian women’s movement’s methods of dealing with the law, lobbying with lawmakers, connecting to international virtual support system, and learned from their patience and persistence.  Green movement is the first movement in Iran to rely on nonviolent combat.  The movement is aware that the method will not work immediately, but it’s also aware that the fall of the System is imminent. Iranian women, both as the women’s movement, and as the womenfolk protesting against a rigged election are a strong part of the movement. Women who’ve been living outside, and are activists either with the women’s movement, as HRs, journalists, or ones who belong to an specific minority group’s cause, have created connections between those in Iran and institutions outside. It wasn’t possible without the women’s role, to carry news from inside and place on the UN sessions’ desks, and stand witness to the happenings inside streets of Tehran, or in the jails of Iran. I can say that even in quantity, women who record and report evidence, outnumbers men activists. This has been crucial, and life saving for the movement. I myself have a difficult mission to clarify distinction between LGBT movement and the Green movement and stress on the unity between the LGBT movement and the Green movement. We (in the LGBT movement) have fought to point out that the Green movement MUST include and acknowledge LGBT human and civil rights, and that, hasn’t been easy, and we’ve come a long way. They’ve come a long a way.

Jenny: When you write, what message are you aiming to get out to the world?

Saghi: Now, this is a different issue, question, line of thought. I don’t aim at sending a message, to anyone, to anywhere, when I write, or in my writing. The message comes out after the poem is created. I don’t ever sit down to elaborate on a message. I see images, and interpret the image into words. I edit and edit until it is the exact same thing as the image. Then, the work, in itself, convey a masg, obviously. My poetry breaks boundaries, but after it is written. I don’t aim, before hand, at breaking anything.

 Jenny: Do you have a lot of family still in Iran?

Saghi: Maybe about 1000  relatives inside Iran, but I am not connected with them since I left.

Jenny: What changes do you hope to see in the country in the future?

Saghi: A constitution based on Human Rights. This is the first thing we need and the first thing I hope to happen to my country. I know I live outside, I know I live in a safe country and can share a Canadian outlook of the everyday life, but that is not possible, realy, because a great part of life of the exiled continues living “there”. We are the exiled, and we remain connected with the country we are cut off from, violently. So whatever takes place there, relates to us. We feel it and suffer from it. A country, living in the 21^st century with rules and regulations of 1300 years back in time, is a country imprisoned in the past. this is not a natural state of mind for anyone. Let alone the in-humanness of Shari’a law. What I hope for Iran is to have a set of laws based on Human Rights, and a governing system based on democracy. If we’re given democracy, then, we’ll be able to elevate it with hard work to be as humane as it can get.

Jenny: In 2007, a newspaper was shut down after you did an interview, what happened?

Saghi: The newspaper wanted the interview. I normally didn’t accept interviews with magazines in Iran. I believed an interview with the paper would give them a chance to pretend there was freedom of expression in Iran. But on that time, I took the advice of my friends, and did the interview. I was told that even one sentence from me in such a huge paper in Iran would create huge difference. So I did. The interview was full of hints at gender fluidity and sexual orientation and one’s rights over one’s body, and cultural boundaries taken for granted in spite of nature’s lax rules on gender, all disguised in Language and Literature examples. The newspaper was distributed in the morning and by noon it was removed from the newsstands. The newspaper’s office was attacked. All 300 hundred staff were dismissed. The reporter and managing editor were summoned to court.

But, what actually happened was that for a whole year afterward, everywhere in Iran and Diaspora Iranian community, people, experts, journalists, human rights activists, everyone were talking about homosexuality, homosexuals rights, freedom of expression of homosexual community. People asked what homosexuality mean and what does it mean to be a homosexual. So, we had a bomb exploded. It took us 10 years ahead in our struggles for homosexuals rights. It was huge. Of course I was shunned by the Iranian community at the beginning, but slowly the scope of work was understood, and the need and urgency for that risk, was understood. It was a step we had to take although political/civil activists always advice us, in the LGBT community, to Wait Until We Have Democracy, Then We Will Give You Your Rights, and we say No, Thank You,  It all should come together. Life don’t wait for democracy, so we’ve got to fight for our rights before a generation’s share of life-time is over.

Jenny: You’ve been in Canada quite a while, do you miss some parts of Iran?

Saghi: No, only when I face the reality of distance, when I realize that I can not call one of my friends over for tea. Or, if a friend is arrested  I cannot do things as those who are inside Iran can. Or when a friend is sick, in a hospital it is not possible for me to be there by their side. Then I feel like I am missing something and I have this longing to be close to them, but I don’t miss the country as the country.

Jenny: Are your children doing well in Canada?

Saghi: Yes they are doing well. They are very happy. They’ve grown up here. They are successful. They have very good relationships with me and with their father, which is a great thing because they could have problems with either of us, and for sure with me. My son is 30 years old, my daughter is 25. They are beautiful people, full of life and thriving here.

Jenny: When I say freedom of expression, what comes to mind?

Saghi: I can only tell you what my friends in Iran tell me when we engage in talks of this sort. Of freedom of expression.  My friends belong to various layers of the society. They are living in parks, are homeless, or they are teaching in university; they are doctors, journalists, writers, and all of them, whatever their social standing, they say they have to hide 24 hours from everybody; their parents, brothers and sisters, their friends, their colleagues, everybody. This, the fact that one has to hide inside his/her own skin, is what freedom of expression brings to my mind. We are not that privileged to speak about freedom of expression in the sense that the rest of the society in Iran talks about it. Again we go back to that basic rights that comes before freedom of expression in press; the right to live. This condition is a violation for freedom of expression in its deepest most genuine meaning and this is something that doesn’t let you breathe easily. The closet is not a funny expression, being closeted is not a flat picture. Being in the closet, hiding inside your own skin all through day and night, means you are not living. Your being is strangled; that’s what it means. You are aware of something you cannot speak about it; words roam around inside you; imagine a psychological state of mind. You are not you when you are hiding your mere being. I mean, until, as homosexuals, we are not allowed to utter our name, freedom of expression is not a fancy word to use in speeches and articles.

Jenny: Does writing feel like a refuge or give you a sense of freedom?

Saghi:  I grew up with the idea and identity of a writer all through my life. I’ve never been told when I was a kid, that you’ll grow up to be a doctor, or a teacher. All I heard was that you’ll be writer when you grow up. That was my father’s wish, I guess. And writing was a serious matter in my family. I started writing seriously when I was 15. But only when I arrived in Canada I begun publishing and begun writing as the means to establish my identity as a woman and a queer woman. Writing became my mission; my identity. I had many achievements. I became the voice that breaks boundaries and taboos. The fact that I lived literary what I wrote about, gave my poetry and fiction a very special respect in the same culture that wished to shun me. I don’t take refuge in my writing. It’s not even a sense of freedom. I live my life while writing, and when I write what I live, the two together open up doors for each other. I know I have taken many “first steps” in our culture by the way I conduct writing and by the issues I write about.

Jenny Anglee & Saghi Ghahraman

Aug 2011

Interviewed by Helmout Gabel

Could you please describe what are the goals of IRQO?

IRQO is a union of like-minded human rights activists – gay, lesbian and straight – who are committed to attaining and maintaining the civil and human rights of the Iranian LGBT community living in Iran and abroad. In IRQO we are working for decriminalizing homosexuality. Our goal is to have tolerance and understanding of Homosexuality and Tran-sexuality in Iranian culture inside and outside of Iran. The work IRQO does in extended, because of the needs and the circumstances to advocate and support Iranian LGBT refugees in transit and host countries.

Why and when was IRQO founded?

IRQO was founded in 2007. We came together as we realized increasing number of our Iranian LGBT members were being forced to flee Iran due to torture and fear of execution and lack of social justice which deprives them of most basic human and civil rights.. Meanwhile those who chose to stay and live in Iran have been subjected to executions, torture, sex changes and humiliations by their family and the society. The Islamic republic of Iran considers homosexuality illegal and their laws are in total violation of articles 1,2,3,5, 7,9,10, 11,12,13,19, 20, 26, 28, 29, and 30 of Universal Deceleration of Human Rights. IRQO is committed to serve the Iranian LGBT refugee community whose number has increased by 25% as of last year.

What kind of activities are the members of IRQO up to?

We are involved in ALL aspects of Iranian LGBT community whether inside or outside of Iran. We assist our clients who are refugees seeking asylum in Europe, Canada, and the USA; we are involved in promoting as well as archiving our LGBT history through: 1. Blogs, our own and other media blogs such as Radio Zamaneh, Koocheh, etc., 2. IRQO’s publication called Cheraq Magazine, and 3. Establishing of an online LGBT bookstore and library; we work closely with other human rights groups such as Human Rights Reporters of Iran, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Human Rights Watch, etc. to globalize our voice and our message; we help promote and educate people about the Iranian LGBT community that exist inside Iran.

How many persons do you estimate concern themselves to be queer in Iran?

There is no data on this issue and only some of the transsexual members of the LGBT community are registered officially with state appointed institutions. There aren’t any way to find out the number of gay and lesbians in Iran as they live extremely low profile and underground. There absolutely no number of bi-sexual as the term is not even defined in Farsi; it is used to define another meaning. But, it is known generally that 7 percent of any population is homosexual. That’s as much as we can say. More then that, we know that during the last decade, the LGBT community in Iran has been considered loud, even though via multiple pseudonyms and only on-line, and only in larger cities, and that is enough to know that We Are Many.

How many have fled?

According to our records in IRQO, in every given year we have about a hundred seeking asylum in Turkey, or other countries such as Malaysia, India, Pakistan, and European and North American countries. In addition to the number of asylum seekers, there is a large number that leave Iran to study in the west, and normally, they plan to go back and reside in Iran.

How many are in similar situations as Matin Yar (a gay refugee in Turkey)?

Almost every LGBT asylum seeker in Turkey is in the similar condition as Matin. But not everyone who has left Iran has experienced jail and execution order, as he did.

Why are these persons under threat in Iran?

According to article 110 of Iran’s Penal code, homosexuality, or sexual encounter between two willing mature men or women is punishable by death. The judge will choose the form of execution. The only difference between men and women homosexual in receiving punishment is the women are executed after the fourth time they are arrested with the same charges. But that’s not all of what homosexuals face in Iran. The tragedy is that families too, are tolerant of the idea of having a homosexual child. Homosexual adolescents learn early in life that they must hide their identity as best as they can, to escape parental punishment and furry. Many times, parents also kill their own children as a form of honour killing, or they kick them out to live out in the street, or, in some cases where parents are more educated,  they leave their children with therapists and in clinics to undergo electroshock in order to “make them straight”. These young men and women are forced to take treatment and take heavy medication for years. Many carry the scars of the shock-therapy, and the pills, for many years afterwards. Parental abuse of their children and their insistence of the changing them into “normal”, we believe, is in most part due to the fear of the penal code that will arrest and execute homosexuals and bring shame to the whole family. We believe that had it not been for the regime’s hostile attitude towards homosexuality, and homosexuals human and civil rights, it would be easy to educate parents and the society in general about the individual right of the LGBT individuals to live and love a partner of the same sex, within the boundaries of the ethics the main stream society practices. Homosexuals and transsexuals are no different of their brothers and sisters with respect to morality and chastity if they are given the chance. In addition to the abuse gays and lesbians and transsexuals experience from the system and society, their immediate family, they have not much chance of pursuing education, acquiring a carrier, and having a home and a family. This means that a homosexual or a transsexual is not allowed to live, they only survive under harsh and hopeless circumstances.

 

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Meanwhile all the best and good continuation

Helmut N. Gabel