Behind the door we meet
Away from people's looks
Behind the door grows a love
Strong and quite unique

Locked away it remains
For years with no end
Stuffed quite undercover
Where no one can see it

The closet is dark and dry
Yet humid and cold too
There's light sneaking in
From its smallest hole

The reflection we see
Of lovers walking past us
Painfully strikes home
Bulletproofing our hearts

It's too crowded in here
Baby I'm stepping out
Take my hand and you know
We can face this world

TRU

قاومي كُلّ الحواجز
إقطَعي كُلّ الخُطوط
وحرِّري كُلَّ القُيود
قطَعتي مَسافَةً لا تُستَهان
وكسَرتي حَبل المصاعِب
وجعَلتي مُستقبَل المرأه
مُستقبَلاً يدعو للإفتِخار
تابِعي طَريق النضال
حاربي كُلَّ الجِبال
فالحَقُّ بين يديكِ
ولو كانَت الطريق طويله
فالمسافه ليست المُراد
بل حَقُّك ِ في العيش كريمه
هو حَقٌّ يستَحِقُّ الجِهاد
T.N.T

As we are sitting here, waiting for everyone to sit in their places, excitement is unbelievable. The theater is almost full and you can almost hear all the heartbeats.
And then at 6:12 exactly, total silence. Everyone is watching the book's teaser.
At the end when they say "wisil l bareed... wa akhiran" Everyone claps , nadz on stage, again more clapping that wouldn't allow Nadine to start talking.
One thing is obvious, Nadine can hardly speak.
Why they wrote this book? Because there are programs like "a7mar bl khat l 3areed", because people look at
If you look at elections you will find is stupid, filled with old men that dont look like us! (applause)
Why we want to launch this book? To change the elections, to change the political cast so that they look at us.
The revolution...
The revolution has started through us.
We want to gather all the gay individuals so they become a political force.

And now a word from the Heinrich Boel... What's interesting is that, according to heinrich boell, this is one of the biggest project funded by heinrich boell so far. As a women's rights' project.

And now, to great applause Nadine presents Lina, who has accepted to read the stories in English.
And now... Bareed mista3jil!

Today is IDAHO, the international day against homophobia 2009. Today is the day we commemorate the victims of homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia in general. Today is the day we remember that we are oppressed.
Not that we are ever granted the luxury of forgetting that we are opressed, not that we are ever granted the pleasure of not being a prosecuted minority. No, ya reit. In fact what happens is that we try to ignore it most of the time, we close ourselves up in our community that we forget the pressure, or at least pretend to forget it. But then life bites us in the ass and we are reminded that we are not meant to exist. It is just enough to take a quick look at the world around us to remember where we belong.

Go to California where Harvey Milk was murdered over 2 decades ago, California, the GAY CAPITAL of the world and look at the prop 8. Look at A7mar bl Khat l 3areed. Look at the beautiful initiative of the Baltic Pride and how it was being sabotaged. Look back at Ebru's murder and finally the barbaric attack on gay men in Sassine.

You look at all that and you think to yourself: What the hell are we fighting for? It's feels overwhelming sometimes that we would have to fight this much for the simplest of rights, that on may 2009, homophobia is still the norm and we are still the criminals just because we are true to ourselves. May 2009 and we are still struggling to fight homophobia, shameful don't you think?

But then again, if you look closely at our tiny little world there is so much more than the homophobia, to every act of homophobia there is and will always be even greater acts of LGBT resistance, to every aggression there will be reactions.
Afterall, they killed Harvey Milk but soon Milk will take over the 22nd of May, it will be the "Harvey Milk Day". Prop8 may have passed but there will always people rebels like Melissa Etheridge that will put her money where her mouth is and that knows what she is giving to society. Yimkin there will always be programs like A7mar bil Khat and there will always be violence, because they just don't understand us, but there will always be demonstrations to tell them that we are willing to be peaceful but we will not be passive!

Pazuzu

Hello everyone - this is a call to an urgent action by all of us.

Wednesday, January 27 at 9.30 pm (Beirut time), LBC is going to tackle the subject of homosexuality on their show A7mar bel khatt el 3arid.

It is very important for us to watch this show to write about it, blog about it, and comment about it. It is also very important to CALL IN to express support for LGBT in Lebanon and to correct whatever wrong things they people will be saying on the show.

So please make sure you watch the show Wednesday at 9.30pm and call the numbers that appear on the screen. Call from Lebanon, the Arab world, and internationally.

When you call, here are some points you should raise:

1. Doctors, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and experts all agree the homosexuality is normal. Therefore, it shouldn't be treated as a topic of "a7mar bil khatt il 3areed"
2. Lebanese media should deal with this topic supportively, not just put homosxuals or transsexuals on display.
3. There are hundreds of thousands of LGBT in Lebanon and they are tax-paying citizens. They deserve full rights as anyone else.
4. Last Thursday, two gay men were beaten up brutally by soldiers on Sassine Square. This inhumanity towards homosexuals is not accepted. And existing

---

Meem will be blogging live on Wednesday as the show is taking place. Watch the show and have your opinion about everything.

Date: January 2nd 2009

Location: the House

Good evening everyone and welcome to the first live blogging of our Annual retreat. I have been thinking of doing this for a while now and it is happening now and here is how it will take place. The 2 days biannual retreat is taking place, starting on Saturday the third of January 2009. On Friday (which is today) we are having a preretreat where we talk about feminist thingies in Meem. I will be putting updates quite often as discussion takes place, for reasons of personal security the girls will be presented according to their nicknames, we will be compiling the outcome later on (once the retreat is over).

And remember that this retreat gathers the most active (because they came 24h after new year’s eve, come on give them some credit for that) and most influential (because they are deciding about Lebanon’s Queer future)members of Meem. So there will be a lot of things that will sound unusual or too far fetched but… well that’s how we like it.

So shall we start?

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2008

This Monday, I was reading this interesting article: Tonight we are going to party like it’s 1985 in which the author, Helen G who is a Transwoman, is denouncing the nomination of Julie Bindel (no seriously check out the link to her Wikipedia page, it’s short and interesting) for the Stonewall awards.

Why you may ask? Because, according to Helen, Julie is a Transphobe. Interesting, non? You see this case may not be directly relevant to our cause or our struggle as Meems, but it does in a way portray the everlasting, internalized xenophobia. Let me summarize for you what has been discussed in those articles:

You have on one hand, Julie Bindel and whoever she represents, who says things like:

As a lesbian, I no longer want to be lumped in with a list of folk defined by ‘odd’ sexual practices, she means anything that is not Lesbian
Transsexuals, having received short shrift from heterosexual society, asked to be included in our rainbow alliance
Queer (anyone who is into “kinky” sex)
Questioning (those having a think about who and how they might shag in the future)
finally (for now) Intersex (those born with biological features that are simultaneously perceived as male and female)
The mantra now at “gay” meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI.
But I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by “odd” sexual habits or characteristics. Shall we just start with A and work our way through the alphabet? A, androgynous, b, bisexual, c, cat-fancying d, devil worshipping. Where will it ever end?
No seriously that is exactly what she says, I did not in any way alter any word she said, you can follow the link to her article to check. Now to be honest, I do understand her frustration… Or at least I feel like I should understand it somehow. For example, Lesbians were heavily implicated in the birth of the feminist movement, but then their cause was silenced to ensure the safety of the feminist cause, they gave more than they took. Then in the gay movement they were very implicated also but they were quickly rendered invisible, for all so many reasons. And I have heard a few times trans people make it very clear that they are not homosexuals, NO, they were just born in the wrong body!

So I guess I understand where all the frustration may come from.

Now on the other hand you have Helen G and whoever she represents (apparently a lot of Trans individuals, and more specifically Feminist Trans women) states that the Lesbians never did and never will accept transsexuals as true/full women.

Which gets me to ask myself a few questions, like for example: why is it so difficult for trans and homos to work together? Let’s look at the Lebanese scene, I work on queer issues. I have been working with gays and lesbians for like 2 years now and though the gay/lesbian community admits the presence and importance of trans issues, though they want to be inclusive, it is not that simple. Sometimes I even wonder if Trans people want to be part of the queer scene. Sometimes our goals are so different that I wonder what could possibly bring us together?

For LGB individuals the goal is to be accepted as people that are attracted to people from the same sex. Trans individuals want to be accepted as individuals whose sexual organs do not coincide with their self-identified gender. Right?

Of course it can be right! If this is how you perceive your activism then the previous statement is true for you. And in that case, I don’t really see how you can combine both in one group that works for the same mission.

But keep in mind that this is not how everyone sees activism, this is not how I see activism and this is not what Meem’s mission statement consists of. My activism in Meem is just part of a greater cause, it is the struggle for diversity. I don’t really care if I am accepted as a woman that loves women and I don’t care if I am woman that is not really a woman that does not belong to the female gender. I honestly don’t care. I allow myself to be with the person I am in love with and I allow myself to be person I am, gender and social standards are not really my problem, even prison is not really an issue for me.

My struggle, my goal, my grail is to alter society so that no one would suffer discrimination, no one would feel wrong because of their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their sex, their ethnic origin, their religion, their political choices, their social class… I want no one to suffer from discrimination… Enough already!

Is this feasible? Is it realistic? Probably not, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. I want a mission that makes sense and for me this definition makes sense. And through this definition, trans individuals and homos fight for the same cause, eradicating heteronormativity and this is only one aspect of what I want to work on. But it is the same social mechanism that leads to both homophobia and transphobia. It is those little social boxes that we are supposed to fit it:

“perfect boy, perfect girl, perfect love, perfect marriage proposal, perfect wedding, perfect kids, in a perfect house, with the perfect dog and the perfect cat that have the perfect fight.”

I fit nowhere in that definition, neither do gays, lesbians, bisexuals, queers, questioning, transgender, transsexual, transvestites, Intersexes, single mothers, shy men, atheists, anarchists, people who can’t afford fancy wedding rings and outfits… and so many others. And all of these groups are my activism allies.

Well I guess that says it all for me… I am queer and I am here to stay. Yes attack me, beat me, insult me, laugh at me and put me in jail. It is ok, you don’t know any better. I do. Heteros may not agree, lesbians may not be interested and trans’ may ridicule me, but then again, I have had worse, I have survived times when I didn’t agree with myself, when I was not interested in my own ideas and when I ridiculed myself. What do you think that you can do to make it worse for me?

I guess Bon Jovi was right, it’s my way. It’s now or never.

Pazuzu

Fellow women, how many of you haven’t faked it at least once in her life. Yes I am talking about Orgasm. And talking about that, do you know that in Egypt they still practice circumcision on Girls. And how sexist is that?! Seriously! I never imagined that, in our times, sexism would still reach a point where a girl cannot feel her clit anymore which can be, for some cases, the peak of pleasure… Or all of them: p hihi.




And it’s not only in Egypt, Africa, Arab world, Even in Lebanon they still do that in very hardcore traditional families living in the suburbs. And it’s a pity.

I think the only thing that would make that acceptable on a mean level, and make men equal to woman this time is to remove men’s Balls. But that’s not what we wish for. All we wish for is for people to leave our Clits alone, and our bodies in general, to claim them as our own properties and admit our rights of ownership of our own selves. Sounds so funny, I mean can you imagine? We don’t own our Own bodies. So lame…..

But you know, when we will achieve that “body ownership”? I believe, it’s when you make the world know that whenever 1 woman is touched therefore you are touching everywoman. And if you touch any woman’s clit or dysfunction it, it’s like hurting a bunch of crazy feminists that value there clit, and yes we do, and yes our clit deserves it.

And you don’t want to piss a bunch of crazy feminists. Or do you!

Nadz, please don’t censor that. Thank you.

Anyway you know me as usual I always randomly get out of my subject and circumcision today is not really my subject.

So anyway I’ve been addicted to this website for quite a long time: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ and there’s one secret that touched me a lot:





It’s about a woman who is not satisfied with her marital sexual life, and to protect her husband’s feelings she is not talking with him about it.

As I said in the beginning, how many of us had once at least faked an orgasm? Or how many of us still haven’t had an orgasm with a partner? I am not talking about lesbians; I am talking about women in general here.

This taboo and protection towards the other partner especially if it’s a man is depriving a lot of woman of their right of pleasure, and we can’t blame this woman because, in our oriental society, a girl should always pretend she’s a virgin and a guy should always pretend he’s a stud, and a girl should always pretend to orgasm so she can protect the “stud’s” self esteem because women are always the ones who should sacrifice a lot of their rights for society and all those fucked up taboos that they are raised upon and breastfed , and the world should listen and know that this is not fair, and God is famous for being fair, and humans are not, therefore this whole equation about women being beneath men and not equal to them is a fake equation. This equation is, I may add, the Father of all Evils and not the mother. It’s year 2008 god damn it, what are we waiting for 2069 to talk about our sexual desires and lives, to burn our push up bras and to protect our clits and right to orgasm once and twice and millions of times. Women need to know their rights, I cannot blame them when they are living in a box of traditions and brainwashing, that’s why whenever you meet another woman who is not orgasming or who doesn’t know she is entitled to her own body, sexual life and pleasure, please tell her that she is and that it’s ok if she’s married and had orgasmed in her life before she is 40. Tell her for us women, so she’d tell her daughters that would become another generation of women. It’s not wrong it’s not “3ayb”. The “3ayb” is when you are born with a pleasure tool and they cut it for you just so you don’t feel and the more “3ayb” is when you shut up and accept it. And if you don’t know your rights the biggest “3ayb” is when other woman know about it and not tell you or do something about it.

~Imm L Meem~

Pointing your fingers at me
I’m so different…
Marginalizing me
I’m so different…
Spitting at me
I’m so different…
Hurting me
I’m so different…
Blaming
so different…
Hitting me
I’m so different…
Underestimating me
I’m so different…
Hunting me
I’m so different…
Dumping me
I’m so different…
People,
I’m going to live my life…
Carry on and never give in
I’m going to make my own destiny
I AM WHO I AM
With or without you
I’M INDIFFERENT






11/09/2008

~Silent Soul

~POWER TO THE FINOCHIOS

There were two girls, living apart
Once they met, and the flame burnt their heart
This was the apple, this was the sin
And the whole world dumped them in a bin

God is Love, and Love was their blame
They had to pretend and become with no name
To hide themselves from the wolves of society
That made hunting these girls their best specialty

Condemned for loving one another
They lost father and mother
No friends, no support, no understanding
And these two lovers were left with nothing

Criminals…CONVICTS
Being themselves caused them to pay through their nose
But instead of giving up their love, they chose to live in conflicts
Carry on, and make out of their love a prose

The day will come when the world will see
That their Apple is nothing but the fact of what they can really be.





~ Silent Soul on 04/09/2008

Remember when we were kids? We only saw as far as our own backyard! We thought that life consisted of getting your parents’ affection and getting our daily allowances to buy as much candy as our little tummies would fit! Can you remember when we would just want to finish our homework in time to play hide and seek before our bedtime? we thought this was it! We thought that life was playing house with your cousin, us being the house keeper, them being the doctors? We brought up our kids, made diner for our cousin/husband after their day at work…




Shhhh, no one tell my husband© 2007 by Lauren



But then we grew up, we understood what it meant, this whole mind game trick. We were unconsciously outraged and wanted revenge! So we started to build-up ourselves! We wanted more from life, we deserved more, and we would get it… But life got harder, we were no longer playing house with our cousin/doctor, we were living it with our lover/girlfriend and life just got a little bit more complicated! We both were strong, willing, overwhelmed and feminine and yet fierce; loving and yet logical; passionately in love and yet practical…

But life doesn’t give you breaks and chances just because you need them, it challenges you and tries so hard to bring you down… Why? Maybe just to build you up, empower you, make you proud of yourself because of the things you have overcome? Or maybe just ‘because’? Searching for the reasons doesn’t really help, searching for the whys is quite useless because at the end of the day, life doesn’t really give a crap about you. It just goes on, running and running, you just have to keep up otherwise you would be left behind with your own regrets and what-ifs…


Some people chose to just stop and enjoy the moment and find themselves blissfully happy in their own existence, in their own world. Some people refuse to wait it out! They will fight until they’re drained out of their last breath! They probably don’t know why and will never find that out but they learned that it doesn’t matter why the journey started. What makes all the difference is the destination, the wheres. Others realized that neither this nor that matters, what counts to them is the journey since they’ve lost the past and are uncertain of the future they tend to chose to enjoy the present. What matters to them is the hows.

Whether it was this or that, we are all, part of the same community, walking side by side trying to find that person who will walk right beside us and hold our hand throughout this whole ordeal. Some of the luckiest do find that special someone and appreciate her to the utmost while they have her. Others do find that special someone but are too scared to hold on to her just in case she leaves them with a broken heart. To those people I feel sorry, they will never know how great it feels to be blissfully happy and unaware.

To some of the most unfortunate, they will never find that person who completes them, and they will either keep on searching still hoping, or they will simply accept that fact and find out another truth about life which is to simply love yourself and enjoy life with everything it brings along…

In all the cases, we are never really happy or really sad because life will not cause you utmost misery or utmost bliss, this feeling comes from within. It’s a personal choice that if you chose your own path, your own heaven or hell…

I didn’t make that choice yet, I’m still waiting to see as much of the facts that my mind and heart can see and accept. Until then I chose to play house with my beloved and be blissfully happy that I got to taste that feeling and live it…

I guess that makes me lucky…

I always keep fresh basil between my diaries pages, I wish you can smell it! It’s the essence of memories and time.

You know, I miss going to bed without worrying about tomorrow! For just one night, one day not to worry about surviving tomorrow and another day of war.

Basil leaf © 2007 by brr2

I wish somebody told me when I was young, that life can wait. I wouldn’t have rushed into growing up. It’s true what they say, when we are young we can’t wait till we grow up, but then again when we are raging wars towards life and fighting our way in, sometimes we just want to stop, drop everything and go play.







But with what, play with what? Dreams?

And here if I may quote miss Tori Amos: “ So many dreams on shelf” and all what is between your hand is your personal profile declaring, in every page, You as a Failure.

The worst thing after disappointing the people you love; is disappointing yourself.

And I did…..

Not so hard to figure out, not so hard to measure.

You know how hard it is to wake up and get out of bed when you know you have nothing to do, and you know that whether you got out of bed or not, nothing in the world would be missing you, not even you. You are just a lame addition to the world. A perfect waste of energy and space.

Good things happen, to someone else indeed, I guess to someone who’s not living on the edge.

I met a friend a few days ago and he told me, when you hit rock bottom, the only way to look is up. But when you hit the bottom, and you say that’s it there wont be something worst, and then you slip deeper and deeper……

Now now, let’s blame it on gravity. Gravity keeps pulling me down, and guess what, there is nowhere else to go.



~Anonymous~

They judge you
They don’t even know you
You have known me for a year
Or maybe for two
You have known me for three years
Or maybe moreYou don’t know my favorite color
Do you even know the color of my eyes?
You don’t know my fears
Do you even know what makes me laugh?
You don’t know my past
‘Cause you never bothered to ask
Do you even know what happened to me when I was a child?
You don’t know what this all means to me
Do you even know what I need?
Most probably you don’t even know my name
You never gave me credit for making an effort
To change what you hate about me
‘Cause you never knew who I was
When I come asking for advise
You push me away
And this is not what a friend would do
And this is not what a family would do
And this is not what a lover would do
A friend won’t showoff
A family should support
A lover should give
And that’s what you don’t do
This is not a cry for sympathy
Nor a cry for help
This is not a cry for attention
Nor a cry for care and love
It’s a cry of “wake up and smell the coffee”
When you care you ask
When you are asked you help
When I have been always there for you
You should always be there for me too!

L.A

How can you not believe
A soul you created
A spirit you gave birth to
Throw me in a river and say goodbye
There is nothing for me to add
More than that; I can’t stand
I gave you chances
I gave you excuses
I am fed up
From your accusations
How can you break the heart
Of a being you created
How can you leave behind
A child that needed you the most
And I am heartbroken
To see the tears in my eyes
Because of you
They say that without you I’m nothing
And how many times I believed so
But it’s time to let go
All the past shall be forgotten
And the future should be built
With you out of my life
And it’s time to erase you
From the beautiful picture I have drawn
Though I know deep inside
That it is hard enough
And it’ll tear me apart
But I have done my best
And you never even tried
To make it up to me like you have said
Throw me in a river and say goodbye!
Throw me … And say goodbye!
Goodbye!

~By L.A.~

It’s funny when you find that special someone,

Someone that makes you feel

absolute

Someone that always seems to make you forget the world around you,

Someone that makes everything in your life finally make sense.



I carry her with me in my heart
She is everywhere I go, everything I see

All was perfect
Our love, our relationship, was inaccessible
Like a fairytale she managed to sweep me off my feet in an instant
With her eyes, she conquers me
One touch is all it took to make me plead for more
With a kiss I melt
However, with this love came blindness
Blindness off everything around us, blindness of reality
Blindness that hid the fact that nothing can be perfect

Months of living in my own dream
Suddenly, with no warning everything fell apart
The disappointment dwelled within me
Our hopes and dreams crushed through an instant
Our differences overcame us
Difference in beliefs

It’s funny when you find that special someone,
A unique girl in whom you believe you can not live without
A precious star you can’t stop thinking about
It’s funny when you find that special someone you have been longing for, and yet unwittingly loose her in an instant.

~Liquid~

Twisted thoughts and beautiful lies
No soothing faith for my rebel soul
Your smell travels a million miles
And passes through my 10 feet wall

I shut my eyes and dwell in dreams
To “think exist” you in my room
When everything within me yields
You’re almost real in this gloom

Blurry and warm…moving closer
Triggering a chill down my spine
The sun is coming up…it’s over!
Night…is the only time you’re mine…

Hope I get to catch the sun and keep it in a jar…very soon

~~~Jexy

Today is a historical day to me for my mom gave me the sign to never tell her about my sexual orientation. It’s a day I will never forget So I was on a women’s beach with my family and there was this lifeguard (a female of course) who hit on me bluntly in front of everyone and particularly in front of my mom and aunts. She sounded like a lesbian to me but I took her as a nice lifeguard who is trying to make friends.
However, as my mother noticed the approaches of the girl, the way she started “ghannijing” me and getting closer to me, she and my aunt suddenly came to me and asked me to get out of the pool. And so I did with a questioning face! Here comes the weird and funny part; when I asked them why did you ask me to get out of the pool my mom answered with fear:

What if she is a lesbian, ya mama shakla lesbian hay!

I laughed on the inside but I tried asking questions to know why my mother got terrified of the lifeguard (a girl) hitting on me. So I asked:

Why would you be afraid of lesbians, mom? Inno do they bite?!

Her answer was:

Everything not normal is terrifying to me and I don’t want you to talk to her again or be next to her.

But this girl never stopped trying to talk to me. So my mother got even more terrified and confessed:

My heart beats so fast from fear every time she talks to you

And so I finally got the sign from my own mother showing how I should never tell her about her daughter being a lesbian, about the truth under my skin, about who I really am and about who I am proud of being. I felt the disappointment, the fear and the irony. I was disappointed because I never imagined people were afraid of lesbians, I mean what are they, terrorists?!?! I was disappointed because it came from my mom, the sign I’ve been waiting for, came out as a negative one. I always wanted to tell you, mom, but after today, I can never imagine telling you, maybe you would be scared of me. I felt scared too, because I kind of defended lesbians, and myself indirectly, while my mother was looking at me with these skeptical eyes of hers, so now I have to watch out for every step so she wouldn’t notice. What a shame it is to be hiding from who you really are and how shameful it feels not to be able to loudly defend women and myself in front of the woman who brought me to this world! The irony was that my mother never got scared when a guy talked to me, I mean if the lifeguard was a guy, would she react the same way? Are lesbians so abnormal in her eyes to the level of preferring a guy hitting on me instead of a girl? And she always refused for me to have a boyfriend (before I even discovered that I’m a lesbian). I hope my experience is a lesson for people to never out until their parents give them the positive safe sign. I wish my mother gave me the sign I’ve been waiting for since 3 years, but she left me highly and deeply disappointed.

Teddy