Hidden in Plain Sight

What it means to be gay and Iranian and living in Philadelphia.

by Natalie Hope McDonald

(Editor's note: Many of the names in this article have been changed to protect identities. A single initial represents a person's name who wishes not to be identified.)

SECRET LOVER: S, who came to Philadelphia from Iran in 1978, has never come out to her parents but is open about her sexuality to friends and siblings. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

When she was 16, S watched Iran's revolution on television. It was 1978 and she had just moved to Philadelphia. She'd soon see her native government toppled, with radical religion and politics taking its place. "Islam is a religion about justice," she says, "but the countries that are Islamic are not just."

S, now 46, is an openly gay lesbian living and working in Philadelphia with her girlfriend, P, a doctor who is also from Iran. "It's a struggle," says S, who has never returned to Iran since she was a teenager, eager to study in America.

For the most part, she's blended into everyday life like anyone else, playing soccer and drinking beer on weekends with like-minded sports fans (she sports a soccer jersey when we meet) and reaching out to fellow gay and lesbian Middle Easterners in the city. S has never come out to her parents, now in their 80s, but she is open about her sexuality to friends and siblings. And she was content to leave it at that until last year's comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at New York's Columbia University. He said (roughly translated from Farsi), "We don't have homosexuals in Iran, not like you have in your country." The remarks inspired her to launch a Web site (blog.doustaneh-hamrah.org) where she and other Iranians can share their stories about what it's like to be gay and from a country that doesn't even believe homosexuality exists.

In some ways, S admits that Ahmadinejad is correct in his denial of gays and lesbians in her homeland. "It's not the same. There is no individuality in Iran," she says. "The family is meshed. You are part of the family. There is no discussion about it. You don't talk about sexuality."

She blames Iran's violent homophobia on radical Islam (she was born Muslim and now practices Sufism). "There are incidences where gay people are having a party. They will crash it and test them to find out if they've had sex." Those who are arrested can be subject to cavity searches and medical examinations to determine if they've experienced physical penetration, which is considered a crime if unmarried. For gays and lesbians, being discovered can mean 100 lashes, or worse. S says gay men and women have been tortured and publicly hanged. Families have also been shamed for having gay children.

"There are parents who find out their son is gay," says S, "and they'll kill the kid."

Arsham Parsi, a gay Iranian now living in Toronto, Ontario, has been working to stop the murder and torture of fellow gays and lesbians in the Muslim world. As founder of IRQO (IRanian Queer Organization) and a speaker at this year's Equality Forum ("Gays and Lesbians in the Muslim World," Thu., May 1, 7 p.m., Prince Music Theater), Parsi says the biggest issue facing many LGBTQ Muslims is not having a support system.

"Many queers live in Iran now, but they have an underground life," says Parsi. "If they are not lucky, they might be arrested by the government." He says the most serious threat is the Islamic punishment code for homosexuality: death. "Muslim states are killing people just for being homosexual," says Parsi. People are also tortured with 60 lashes for same-sex kissing. Homan, an Iranian exhile LGBTQ group based in Sweden, estimates that since Iran's revolution in 1979 until 2000, Iran has executed at least 4,000 gays and lesbians.

Parsi himself risked being arrested in Iran three years ago. "They found my address through my IP address and I had to escape to Turkey," he says. He eventually won an asylum certificate by the United Nations that was accepted by the Canadian Embassy. He's been living in Canada since May 2006, working to help find asylum for displaced refugees from throughout the Middle East and Europe.

Justin Weaver, a teacher in Philadelphia, first heard about Parsi, IRQO and the plight of gay and lesbian Iranians on National Public Radio this past fall. He later found out Parsi would be visiting Philadelphia for Equality Forum and donated several hundred dollars to cover expenses. He even hosted a benefit party to bring attention to the issue here in Philly. "I'd like to see LGBTQ people in this country become allies with LGBTQ folks in the Middle East, to show solidarity with their struggles and to build lasting relationships with people worldwide," says Weaver. "I think it's important for LGBTQ people living in areas where they experience less oppression to advocate for LGBTQ people who suffer much more."

F, a 47-year-old gay man in Philadelphia who's originally from Tehran, appreciates Weaver's activism. Since F moved from Iran in 1978, he's been living in Center City. "I've started coming out in the last five years," he says, first to family in the United States, and most recently to relatives still living in Tehran, where he visits yearly.

"I underestimated my family in Iran," says F, who says they had little trouble with his announcement. "They know absolutely no gay people," he says. "That's why it took me 20 years." F says he never told his parents he was gay before they died. His mother simply stopped asking when he was getting married.

"It's dangerous in Iran to be gay," says F. "It could put me in trouble when I go back to have a published article with my name in it. It could put me in jail." But he says there is hope as more people are introduced to gays and lesbians. "It's a reflection of the media," he says. "I'd had people call me faggot and it was shocking, but I'm over that. But I'm still concerned about going to Iran."

Michael Luongo, a gay writer living in New York and editor of the anthology Gay Travels in the Muslim World (Harrington Park Press), admits that Middle Eastern men tend toward overt machismo. At the same time there's an undercurrent of homosexuality everywhere. "The notion of homosexuality is not very far away," he says. "While the topic of gay in the Western sense is a foreign concept, men having sex with men is not abnormal. It's part of the culture."

Every year, S's girlfriend, P, goes back to Iran to visit her family. She came to the U.S. in 1985 when she was 13. "The war with Iraq was going on," remembers P. "A significant portion of my family was living here. I didn't want to live in a war-torn city."

She says because of economic sanctions, there were many limits on what was available. And while today's Iraq is bustling in comparison, inflation means people pay dearly for quality of life. Between women's rights, economic troubles and education struggles, gay rights are easily displaced.

P and S have a very different notion of what it means to be out and gay. They're both very private for reasons that may seem unthinkable to Westerners.

"In all honesty, I don't want anybody causing any problems for my family," says P, who admits that when she told her family she was a lesbian, it was explosive. "Even folks who have lived here for 40 years have a hard time with it," she says. "I think a big part of it is, even though they might have lived here and are intellectual, they're still very socialized by their upbringing and religion."

P says most Iranian families would be surprised by how many people they know are gay. Her concern in staying private has more to do with the Iranian government than sexual politics even though she makes her home in Philadelphia. "In recent years, it's been really unclear what the Iranian government uses as an excuse to confiscate passports and hold people back, and stop them at the border and not allow them to leave the country," says P, who admits that she and many of her family members travel from Iran to Philadelphia and back. She says if they would read a story like this with her name in it, both she and her family members could be punished.

"My battle," says S, "is one person at a time. This is how you change things. "I don't think a lot of people here know there are gay Iranians. But it's not a Western thing. It's a human thing. And people are scared."

The point of her Web site is to encourage others to speak openly about their fears and their struggles. "When I started this, I was alone," says S. "But I just cannot sit anymore and let things be. There's a lot of guilt and fear." She says that while she may not have had support when she was coming out, she had courage. "It's really important for people to be recognized," she says. "I believe there will be a day when people will believe in their own religion. That day will come. And all of the suffering will be solved."

(n_mcdonald@citypaper.net)