On Wednesday, January 29, 2009, ahmar bel khat l 3arid on LBC aired a show concerning LGBTQ’s in the Arab World. The show consisted of a bunch of LGBTQ men and women who were from different countries in the Middle East. The program depicted LGBTQ’s as abused, fatherless, tormented people. This show is an insult to all the LGBTQ communities that have been working so hard to break the mould that being gay/lesbian is acquired and a disease.

The anchor of the show was disrespectful, homophobic, and subjective. He did not allow people who were advocating the gay cause to speak freely without interrupting them or cutting them off and moving on to another person. Furthermore, the show had a psychiatrist who seemed to be homophobic. Also, although there were many people attempting to call in on the show and correct their mistakes, the screening of calls were only allowing people who either disapproved of homosexuality or were not challenging the direction that the producers were trying to take.

When I initially heard that this show was going to be aired, I felt a recipe for disaster about to occur. However, never in my wildest dreams did I believe that it could have possibly become this bad. For all those who watched the show, and joined in on the discussions, there was a general consensus that the program was pathetic and basically cheated the general public from being truly educated on the subject of homosexuality.

The show was basically a commercial to get more people to watch it and to try to “cure” the gay people. I am extremely disappointed, personally insulted, and seriously hurt for the gay organizations who have worked so hard on this cause. Ahmar bel Khat l 3ared is a homophobic show and making an effort to gain a few extra ratings by tackling a controversial topic that not many know the truth about. I sincerely hope that one day; someone will really speak out and inform the public of the truth. This national and international ignorance must be corrected. Ignorance may be bliss but it is also a dangerous weapon that should be eliminated.



Smurf

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

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

In Meem we are often asked why we never do high profile media work? Since we are so progressive and we are so comfortable with our gender and sexual identity, why don’t we just go on TV and say it out loud, if we want to reach out to each and every Queer and Trans in Lebanon? And trust me their argument is quite strong, we are not ashamed of who we are, we love our identity, we love being who we are. Homosexuality is not the problem, Homophobia is. God loves us, it’s bigot and hypocrites that God despises. But we don’t want to go public, we don’t want to reveal the names of Members. Why? Because when anyone comes to Meem, it is not advocacy that s/he looks for, it is support. Some people choose to remain in the closet for the rest of their lives and that is their choice and their decision. It’s really cool to go down in the streets and to scream: Civil Rights or Civil War… hm, actually that wouldn’t sound so cool, but I am sure we can find some slogan that makes sense to our society and to our community. It’s really exciting! I personally can’t wait for the day when I would stand in the Lebanese parliament and ask all those men (and wives/sisters/daughters of men) a few questions. I can’t wait to ask them why I am still not a citizen just because I happen to have a vagina? Why do I need a man to give my children a last name when I already have one? Why is it that society would much rather see two men shooting each other instead of seeing two loving each other? Why is it that my gender is decided by a doctor just by looking at me naked? And I would like to ask them why my society is segregated according to something as superficial as sexes? Why do I have to choose which bathroom to go to, what wardrobe to wear, where do I get to sit in a car? So many questions I would like to ask them while looking them straight in the eyes and see them baffle and have nothing to answer, or giving me answers that wouldn’t convince anyone. But the truth remains that if I am ready others or not, if my parents would accept me others wouldn’t accept their queer kids, some would much rather see their daughters dead and never see them changing their gender. And we tend to under-estimate how much we need or want our parents to love us and accept us. We like to tell ourselves inno eh ibloune ibloune, ma ibloune yostoflo. But in the end of the day, we love our parents, we really and truly just want them to love us. We don’t want our mothers to cry and we don’t want our fathers to be sad. It’s not because we don’t conform to social standards that we will not love our parents. It hurts us when they don’t accept us and sometimes, it is really much better if we wait till we are ready to risk it all and come out to them. A lot of people (including LGBTQs) take the coming out process lightly; they think that it’s easy. But it’s not, the long term effect of social rejection can range from depression to physical illness. And it all makes you wonder, is it always worth it?

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?

Obviously nowadays, anyone can launch a TV station and just blab about things they absolutely know nothing about! I was cruising through the channels, Saturday afternoon, i stumbled upon photos of Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres’ wedding…On El Jaras TV. I realized right away that the voice over really doesn’t fit nor describe what my eyes were seeing. The Presenter of this whatever show was saying: “Hayda 3eres Ellen w “Borita“…wlek shoufo kif 3am yetsarafo metel el couple el tabi3eh! 3am yere2so ma3 ba3ed!!!!” She was so in shock and hysterical and needed an urgent dose of XANAX! God Help her!
The first thing that was on my mind: “Seriously you dummy! You wanna trash them? Fine! But at least get the names right!”. And what added up, she was talking at the same time about the Indian man that married a certain animal! Is this where we belong? In the same category of man/animal marriage!? She kept displaying the photos over and over again, adding up “Hayda dod el din!“. The heavenly angels assigned her to label people and decide what’s wrong and what’s against religion! I wanted to call and ask her: “Honey, if the sight of Ellen and “Borita” sickens you this much…why do u keep displaying them?” But then again, every word she was saying was showing nothing but IGNORANCE.

Jexy

Saturday the 16th at 4.p.m.
Workshop

Hello all
It was stated in the meem calendar that we will have a workshop about film as a tool for actisvism ? However that subject being too vast for a two hours workshop, I decided to give a workshop about the image of lesbians in the history of film starting 1910?

At the end of the workshop, those who are interested in a technical one, as in introduction to camera use and history of film technics and such , can put down their names so we can put together a workshop for Activist Development and give you the tools necessary to proceed .

Hope to see you tomorrow
TaKe Care
Shant

Saba7o girls and boys w ya3tikon l 3afye,

After the outing of the issue 0 of our Magazine “Bekhsoos” titled: Bekhsoos l homophobia

And after the Internal and International admiration that this magazine has collected, it’s time for everyone to get their brains back to work and start preparing for the next issue.

Quoting the crazy Editor-in-Chief:

…so break in the articles. I already have quite a few, (many thanks to all those who’ve already submitted stuff), and it would be great if you could submit some before the 19th midnight. Anything post that deadline will not be accepted, sorry!
The theme of this issue is Pride. It would be preferable if your submissions (writing, artwork, anything that can be uploaded on www.bekhsoos.com) are Pride-oriented; not just the Pride Marches and/or Parades, but more like what the concept of Pride means to you. If you have nothing to say concerning Pride, but have another topic in mind, please, by all means, do not hesitate to share it.

So what you need to remember is:

Tell us about Pride
Submit your articles before the 19th
Write in any language you feel comfortable with (Arabic, French, English, German, Spanish, Armenian…); our team of translators will translate it, or we would cooperate with you on the translation
For the Meems that live abroad, in countries where the Pride Parade is organized, it would be nice if you tell us about it, if you’ve never participated in it, then it would be interesting if you tell us why. In brief, just tell us, we are curious and there are lots of other curious people out there.

So for submissions or further information please contact the Editor-in-Chief: Jenni on the following email: jenni@meemgroup.org. Or if you’re too shy then just contact me and I will take care of communicating with her.

So juice those pens and amaze us.


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Salut tout le monde,J’ai l’honneur de vous invitez à contribuer dans une oeuvre magnifique. Cet oeuvre s’appelle Bekhsoos (avec double O et non OU, faites attention). Bekhsoos est le fruit de la collaboration de toutes les filles et les garcons de Meem. C’est une magazine sympa et tres cool (egalement avec double O et non OU). Le numéro 0 de Bekhsoos est déjà disponible si vous voulez le consulter.

Mais on n’a pas de temps à perdre, numéro prochain ne va pa tarder à paraitre et je veux voir votre contribution dans ce nouveau numéro. Le sujet général sera le Pride et je suis certaine que vous avez beaucoup à dire sur ce sujet.

Alors installer vous bien et écrivez, une fois terminé, il suffit de l’envoyer à Jenni (jenni@meemgroup.org) et que le spectacle commence. mais faites attention il faut l’envoyer avant le 19 Juillet pour que l’équipe puisse le publier. Alors… Yalla pas de temps à perdre

N.B.: si vous voulez consulter le numéro précédent visitez la page suivante: www.bekhsoos.com