The Otherness –
Behind Queer Arab Social Codes of Conduct
this is dedicated with love to;
my younger self
my powerful and beautiful queer Arab and Middle Eastern siblings
my Cairo chosen family
my Amsterdam chosen family
whoever’s reading with an open heart
‘Code-switching’ are tactics queer people use to ‘pass’ as straight. A survival mechanism to be deployed in uncomfortable social settings or situations where it’s unsafe to communicate or express one’s queer identity. Through changes in gesture, body language, clothing, and other forms of non-verbal communication someone can go from ‘reading queer’ to ‘blending in’. As always, these codes are dependent on context — they differ from one person to another according to the many variables influencing one’s identity such as nationality, background, ethnicity, religion, etc…
For example, queer individuals in Europe would use a different set of codes when dealing with their parents, in contrast to a Middle Eastern or Arab queer person who’s in the same position. The embeddedness of social norms influences the form of code-switching and the natural defensive instinct that can be attached to it. Throughout this paper, I will be sharing and discussing the shared experiences of 17 queer Middle Eastern and Arabs from different countries. Together, we reflect upon queer Arab social codes of conduct and switching here in Europe in contrast to their experiences back home. All interviewees are anonymous for safety and personal reasons. But first, read this quote below and take it all in:
“… first needing to decolonise the imagination before you can queer it, as the West has no image of and actively erases queer Arab identities.” – Sa’ed Atshan
With this quote in mind, I’d like to draw attention to moments where queer Arab culture is missed, misread, or misinterpreted by the Western lens of queerness.
Queerness:
Throughout history, the term ‘queer’ has been used as a slur when addressing members of the LGBTQIA+ community. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, many people within the community started to reclaim the term ‘queer’ in a more positive light, subsequently coining it a synonym for ‘LGBTQIA+’. Further in the 21st century — from a more political lens — queer, as a term, has become broader, describing and including those who do not conform to heteronormative and misogynistic social, sexual and gender values and politics. These two definitions are the contexts in which the term queer will be used throughout this paper.
In short, the term queer and the meaning behind it has changed since its reclamation by the LGBTQIA+ community. Each of us could relate differently to the term, which made me curious to ask all my interviewees the question: “What does the word queer mean to you? And how do you apply it to your daily life?”. Each interviewee had a unique answer attached to their experience of course but there were also common core values and elements attached. For example, one answered:
“Queerness means contesting the heteronormative rules and social expectations that limit one’s expression. Surpasses boundaries of orientation and gender; and self-checking if those restraints still have control on you is the only way to know if you have set free from them.”
Queerness tends to be contextual, and in looking through the lens of an Arab context, one must know that growing up all we knew about the term ‘queer’ was attached negatively to sexuality and sexual behaviour. In moving abroad, we, as Arab queer individuals, found a new meaning to the term queer. One that surpasses sexuality and embraces identity, gender, values and much more — this is something all the interviewees mentioned and attested to.
Queer Arab culture remains mostly unacknowledged in the West, even though expressions of queerness have existed throughout our history just as much as yours. For example, “The Khawal” was a traditional male dancer in Egypt who dressed in feminine clothing and was well-known until the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Today, the term is used as a derogatory slur, synonymous with ‘faggot,’ targeting men perceived as effeminate or gay, especially those assumed to be submissive and bottoms. While it is mainly used in Egypt, it also appears in other Arabic-speaking countries. The term “komsiyya” is an Arabized version of the French phrase “il/elle est/ils sont comme ça” (meaning “he/she is/they are like that”). It was originally used among the Francophone bourgeoisie and in polite society to avoid using explicit or coarse language. The term gained wider usage following the 2001 Queen Boat raid incident in Cairo, a significant event in the discussion of sexuality in Egypt, where 52 gay men were arrested at a houseboat party. After this incident, members of the LGBTQ+ community began using the phrases “he is a komsiyya” or “they are komsayat” to describe themselves.
I do recognise that nowadays generations in some areas of the Arab peninsula are more aware and educated on terminology as a result of the increase in queer visibility on social platforms and ease of accessing information, which is a privilege we did not have before and should not be taken for granted.
In other instances, not all of us come to terms with our queerness in a sexual context before finding queerness in an identity context. For example:
“I attracted people who were queer before I even realised I was queer myself because of the trust and innate attraction. They weren’t subject to prejudice from dealing with me as much, as I was passing to them as a trustworthy person.”
The depth of such a statement surpasses the basic element of connection — relatability —and further emphasises the element of safety. When a society and country’s system is focused on dehumanising you, making you feel unworthy, and constantly ‘in the wrong’, the simplest acts of compassion and respect can give one a sense of place and belonging. And I had to learn that, in understanding people’s differences, mine too can be understood.
This shared experience at the hands of social prejudice fuelled by religion and norms has us as Arab queer people connected to one another but, at times, it disconnects us from others. I’d argue, however, that this disconnect lies not in some inherent cultural discrepancy or insurmountable difference in lived experiences. Rather, it stems from the prejudice that is projected from Western queer people onto Arab queer people in the form of sympathy with the lack of sensibility and presence of humility, whether directly or indirectly. I do not share my stories with you because I want your sympathy, I share them as it’s the force behind the building blocks that formed who I am today, I need you to have an open mind, to read, to listen, to not compare me to your Arab classmate growing up, to not feel the need to claim you understand what I’m going through, it’s okay to not know, it’s okay to ask sensibly and be unfamiliar — it’s human.
Otherness:
With this sense of exclusion and unfamiliarity that often accompanies a queer identity, comes the feeling of otherness. There are many variables that play into feeling ‘othered’. But before I dive deep into othering, let’s grab a definition by Jean-François Staszak: “… the process of creating a distinction between an in-group and an out-group by emphasising differences, leading to the stigmatisation of the out-group based on stereotypes and hierarchies, ultimately reinforcing the identity of the in-group.”
In a sense, Arab queer people who are living in the West experience a two-fold othering: firstly, from the heteronormative standards within society as such and, secondly, through their difference from queer people born in the West. The 17 people that I spoke to attested to this. Arab and Middle Eastern cultures are collective in their nature, unlike Western cultures which tend to be more individualistic. This collective essence of culture comes at a cost: your social circles, as long as you live in Arab/Middle Eastern societies, are defined by your relations in school and family; for example, in contrast to Western countries, most schools in the middle east provide all levels and grades from kindergarten until senior high school year so some people graduate without ever changing schools. In short, all they know are these circles that they built or got forced into through parental friendships. This sets a different precedent for the forming of social connections from our queer counterparts in Western society.
Although there’s always variation in individual experiences, an overall tenor showed through when recounting growing up queer in the middle east: with finding yourself and your identity you start feeling like you do not fit in, you’re excluded for being more feminine or not sporty but included in another sense since you’re ‘not like the other boys’. Likewise, girls may feel safer around you and relate more as you’re artistic and softer — an absolute limbo of an experience. You then continue living what I like to call the ‘Hannah Montana lifestyle’: a double life where, as a queer person, you’re constantly testing the limits, navigating the fine lines between accepting and being yourself and conforming to society in order to fit in, have an easier life, and to not risk your safety and collective reputation. As in our culture, the actions of one define many. In this case, family.
There are different reasons why queer Arabs move to Western countries: some move on study visas, some move on work visas and some seek asylum and refuge due to unsafe and unstable conditions back home. As stated earlier, the otherness does not stop, it only continues. As one interviewee stated:
“I’m othered for being the queer one in asylum camps even around other Arabs, and outside I’m othered for being Arab and an asylum seeker, and at work alienated for not being Dutch, being queer and my stance on politics”
Another interviewee also said:
“I’m othered on every single measure, because I’m brown, woman, queer, race and then passing as non-Arab because my English has no accent, but later on people shut down when they find out.”
Another interviewee further explained:
“Abroad it’s the otherness of the family trauma and the depth of my experience limits my queerness in the eyes of others as I’m not out and proud online. Relating to white queer friends and the sad sob Arab queer stories are not of interest or comprehension so I keep them to myself.”
Lastly, there is a third othering at play: one that starts from within the queer community back home. Within the queer communities of the middle east, binary and heteronormative notions are rooted deeply. For example, sex positioning, roles, and the words attributed to them often show this embeddedness. Commonly known roles in the gay scene like “top”, “bottom” and “vers” in Arabic are “سالب” “موجب and “تبادل”, which translate to “negative”, “positive” and “switch”, with bottom corresponding to ‘negative’ and top to ‘positive’. These terms accompany very macho and heteronormative blind notions, where tops are expected to be — and, almost exclusively are — more muscular, more manly, and dominant whereas bottoms are expected to be submissive, feminine and less built. Ideas which, I believe, negate not only one’s preference and identity but also the fluidity of queerness and self-expression while cementing the view that looks or body type supposedly dictate what (and who) you should be into. However, later on, after moving here and setting free from these rigid lines, one can hardly avoid fetishization: being objectified for where we’re from, how we look, the colour of our skin, the thickness of our eyebrows, or the density and texture of our hair accompanied by an absolute lack of sensitivity by predominantly white individuals.
Groups in society tend to develop their own language to strengthen identities by enhancing what members share and, equally important, by excluding those who don’t belong. These linguistic markers serve as the bonds that unite, helping members feel a sense of belonging within that identity (Queer Arab Glossary, 2024). This isn’t to imply that queer people lack or cannot have a shared understanding of their identity. However, queerness has evolved in diverse ways over time and across various regions of the world, often taking different paths; there’s immense value in these differences and those differences deserve to gain more attention.
The light at the end of the tunnel is what makes such struggles worth it in my opinion. These circumstances and experiences of otherness at early stages in life make one’s skin thicken when navigating the trials and tribulations of life, make one eventually find comfort in their otherness and identity, make one’s sense of pride deeper than it has ever been, and the years of self-criticism and doubt come to an end.
Code Switching:
Earlier, I defined code-switching as tactics utilised by queer people through gesture, body language, clothing, and other forms of non-verbal communication as a means to pass as straight in social settings where they feel uncomfortable or unsafe communicating and expressing their queer identity. A phenomenon that varies across cultures and finds different forms of expressions depending on the individual or context.
Homonationalism, as defined by Jasbir Puar, refers to the growing embrace of LGBTQIA+ rights by (mostly Western) nations, as well as the parallel complicity of LGBTQIA+ individuals and associations with nationalist politics. Homonationalism can come into play in our daily lives living abroad, for example, and interviewee said:
“… hiding behind my queerness to not come off as a threat because of my colour, but also in some other spaces where middle eastern workers are, I tend to hide behind my colour to not get perceived as queer and put myself in uncomfortable situations.”
This brings us to realise that codes used by queer Arabs in the West tend to be more racially based, in contrast to back home where codes tend to be based on patriarchal notions of masculinity — all in hopes of gaining more respect, to be taken seriously, and achieve a level of safety. For example, back home queer people use code names or switch pronouns — for instance, ‘Joseph’ to ‘Josephine’ — when straight people are present. This allows them to fly under the radar and talk about one another without risk to social status. An interviewee even pointed out this key element of code-switching:
“In Egypt, I did it to survive and be safe and here I just do it to not be noticed or stand out to avoid certain uncomfortable situations, more preventative.”
This showcases how code-switching is and can be a vital survival mechanism to many. Growing up, however, code-switching tends to take shape as a natural instinct to adapt and absorb the codes inherent to one’s journey — all in the hope of one day breaking free of them. Some even tend to code-switch at recent protests to protect themselves from any possible friction when surrounded by so many arab and Middle Eastern bodies, an interviewee said:
“When protesting, because of my online presence, I get recognised so I have to protect myself and code-switch in these settings. As they’re coming for me, not admiring me. Protests are also not about me, it’s about the cause so I don’t have to stand out or make or serve a look.”
Before moving to Amsterdam from Cairo, a friend told me “You can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick” —and here, “sick” didn’t reference my queerness, it meant rather the aftermath of constantly being made to feel like an outsider (no matter how many friends I had, how many characters I played, and how much I tried to hide my queerness behind them). Western culture can be seen as a safe haven when you’re young, naive, queer, and unsafe. It’s a slippery slope: you run the risk of hating or even resenting where you come from. So you start code-switching and adapting to ways of life that, as you perceive it, have not caused you hurt. And it was only when I did leave the environment that hurt me, as my friend said, I started to heal those open wounds, thereby gradually finding solace and pride once again in my background and culture. And — not to my surprise — almost all the interviewees had similar or even identical experiences in refinding their cultural connections.
Conclusion:
To wrap things up, this exploration of otherness, code-switching and the unique experiences of queer Arabs reveals the intricate ways identity, culture, and survival mechanisms intersect. The practice of code-switching, especially within the queer Arab community, is deeply contextual, influenced by cultural norms, societal pressures, and the need for safety. It highlights the dual struggle of navigating queer identity in both Middle Eastern and Western contexts, where individuals often find themselves adapting to multiple layers of social expectations—whether to conform to patriarchal norms back home or to navigate racial and cultural prejudices abroad.
The interviews underscored the resilience and adaptability of queer Arabs as they negotiate their identities across different environments. They revealed shared experiences of otherness that extend beyond sexual orientation, touching on cultural, racial, and national dimensions. Queer arab otherness, while often painful, also fosters a sense of solidarity as well as a deeper understanding of one’s identity and pride.
Eventually, this journey of code-switching and self-discovery is not just about survival but concerns a reclamation and redefinition of identity. It is about finding strength in differences, healing from past traumas, and embracing one’s culture and queerness with a renewed sense of self-love. The experiences shared by the interviewees reflect a broader narrative of resilience within the queer Arab community—one that deserves greater recognition and understanding, free from the confines of Western-centric views on queerness.