The first anti-violence LGBT protest in Beirut

Around 200 people gathered on the afternoon of Sunday, February 22 on Sodeco Square in Beirut to protest violence and discrimination against minorities, especially homosexuals. Lebanese lesbians and gay men took to the streets in the very first public sit-in organized by Helem in Lebanon and stood almost in disbelief as banners with anti-homophobic and pro-diversity were raised high above the heads. We shall no longer be afraid

Media Coverage:

L’Orient le Jour (French)

Annahar

Al-Akhbar

As-Safir

Now Lebanon

Liban News

Iloubnan

Monthly Review

AOL News (AFP video)

Nawaat

Bashasha (left) and a friend.
Studio Shehreadze, Saida, LEbanon, late 1950s
Hashem el Maadi

copyright: Arab Image Foundation

“Films inspired the people a lot. They came to perform kissing in front of a camera. In a conservative society such as Saida (Sidon, Lebanon) people were willing to play the kiss between two people of the same sex, but very rarely between a man and a woman.”

courtesy of queeringyerevan.blogspot.com

L’Homosexualité au Liban

Il ne faut surtout pas râter, dans presque tous les films hollywoodiens, le personnage cliché du gay-meilleur-ami ou le styliste au grain de folie attachant. Les Libanais les regardent et les trouvent bien sympathiques. Ils regardent regardent Elton John se marier avec sont amant (n’est-ce pas logique après 20 ans de vie commune?) et la Gay-Pride à Paris : c’est bruyant, exotique, avec ces looks extravagants… puis ils changent de chaîne.

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