About The Closet - Pt. 1

Whenever I get to engage different communities and various environments, I feel motivated to question almost everything around. Personally, I believe that the past six months with every single details have been the most important and influential period of my life as a person who thinks, or at least tries to, so far. Those six months have been full with happy events and painful moments evenly, and they were the wakeup call for my mind as it seemed to stop operating for a while – thanks to German life style –

I was given the chance to get involved in many communities, or groups, whatever the preferred nomination, I felt belonging to some of them, and I felt rejection to others, perhaps because of my social background, then when I gave myself a chance to know more, and to open my mind, I found my rejection to be a total mistake. Things have been going this way, and now I feel like having something in my mind about a part of these communities, which is an Egyptian LGBT community.

Egyptian LGBT communities in my mind, or to avoid generalization, those sectors of them who I got the chance to approach and be part of, because of my identity rather than my ideology, are very interesting societies. They make me think, question, and sometimes end up with being unhappy with the results, and sometimes I’m pleased for their existence.

Although my mind, no my time, is sufficient to discuss all the social aspects of these communities, I prefer to discuss one main point this time, hoping no one would feel offended or underestimated. 

Egyptian LGBT communities consist of, sometimes individuals, and some other times they seem to be patriarchal communities, with semi-hierarchy authorities, starts with leaders and ends with followers, or admirers. In each class you would find a certain life style, certain forms of powers, and certain amount of independency, and sometimes no communities at all, only individuals. 

In the image, there are always those brilliant, smart gay men, sons of the middle class, whom life is always interesting and astonishing when you are a “new-comer”. If you watch closely, they are usually in either small or large groups, and every member of these groups has similar life conditions, not necessarily identical of course.

I feel that that sort of communities tries to copy policies of other homosexual communities, especially western communities. It’s amazing how they believe that according to their choice of policies, they can see their development goes in the same process, same steps as the main source, when it comes to sexual freedoms. They adopt specific cultures of those western communities in their life style, beliefs, and even terms they use to describe some state or event related to their identity.

This gives me a very unpleasant feeling that they seem to see west as the source of homosexuality, or that it was the first to describe it, giving it the right to choose terms, methodology and style. Although, if we go back few thousands of years, you’d find that the first documentation for a gay couple was during the ancient Egyptian era, for instance.

Despite many facts, they decided to copy the western experience, for example using the term “Coming Out of the Closet”, the term that started in USA where the debutants (upper class women) would come out in great events to the society and express their social interests. The term was developed later on in the US as a way to join the homosexual world. It’s worth mentioning that the meaning itself was being used in Europe, during the centuries of theocracy, when a person should declare his Christianity so the church would accept him. The later seems closer to what’s happening in Egypt. Seems like there’s that sort of contagious culture about “steps to be a good gay”, includes joining a suitable gay group for his class, not lower class groups whose language and attitude don’t fit. One of the most important steps to follow the true homosexuality is to “come out of the closet” – not only by definition, but also in the same drama and style followed in the west, gives me the feeling that coming out is a testimony given by god which must never be modified.

It’s clear to me that there is an absolute absence of understanding the nature of the society we are living in,  and the uniqueness of the homosexual experience in Egypt, things are different here. We don’t have teenagers’ suicide because of bullying; we don’t have Lady Gaga singing for the Gay people. The sexual culture and it’s relation to the society with all its aspects in Egypt is very unique and private, and it doesn’t seem that copying western patterns of activism helps a lot , yet I agree we have to come out of the closet, and the closet I mean is the American experience with all it’s definitions, and take a deeper look.