queer arabs exist, and they're making fantastic media

a roundup of queer arab films, books, music, pods, and art pages

artwork by @artqueerhabibi commemorating Sarah Hegazi

hello! welcome to the many many many new faces on here since my last dispatch went (substack) viral. i’m flabbergasted and incredibly thankful that you’re here. i was cooking has once again doubled in size, and it’s your readership that emboldens me to keep writing heart ❤️

more than the stats, i was heartened by the comments i received on the last post, “living danishly isn’t the solution we think it is.” dozens of you chimed in with your own experiences — so many people resonated with what i found researching the essay. i’m sorry that it was accurate, and i’m hopeful you perhaps felt seen.

additionally, thank you to Colina and Mckenzie for “sending me a coffee” after the last piece! i was delighted to get the notifications <3 lots and lots of effort and hours go into these pieces (as well as effort from friends who kindly edit my work for free) so anything sent my way is immensely appreciated.

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This week, I’m keeping things short with a recommendations list of queer Arab media for Pride month.

I’m not an expert on this topic — especially because I’ve lived my entire life, past the age of 10, outside the Arab world — but below are recommendations of film, music, and books that I have engaged with and loved, and find to be valuable for understanding the lived experiences of queer Arabs. In this way, the people featured can speak to you directly of their own experiences of being queer and Arab. As Saeed Kayyani writes in his essay “Trophy Hunters, White Saviours and Grinder” in This Arab is Queer (mentioned below):

Tragically, we [queer Arabs] don’t have much understanding, representation or even acknowledgement from the vast majority of our queer siblings across the globe, yet this is the very thing that would probably turn the tides and make queer Arabs seem more human. Primarily we need our voices heard, as liberation for queer Arabs will take time, effort and a lot of strength (p171).

with that, let’s dive into a short and sweet recs list:

film

Oriented (2015) is a documentary that follows the lives of three gay Palestinian men living and working in Israel, showcasing the ordinary moments of their day to day lives and the complications of the intersection of their identities. We follow them through checkpoints to visit their families, at cafes in Tel Aviv, and watch their art practice of making subversive videos.

books

This Arab is Queer (2022) is an anthology edited by Elias Jahshan featuring 20 essays from queer Arabs. Each essay is deeply personal but the running theme throughout is that each explores a different facet of the queer Arab identity, whether it be through religion, family, the immigrant experience or the asylum seeker’s experience, political instability back home, and Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.

LGBTQ+ Arabs are often asked how it is possible to be queer in our culture. We are expected to explain the ways in which homophobia can make our coming-out journeys a challenge, should we choose to embark on that journey. The question implies that Arabs do not have the capacity to be progressive. It also limits our ability to tell our stories on our own terms. In This Arab is Queer, we reclaim that narrative and show how we can comfortably be both” (p9)

— Elias Jahshan, from the book’s “Introduction.”

The Queer Arab Glossary (2024). I’ll admit, this one is still in the mail en route to me! This glossary and essay collection came out earlier in June and features local queer slang from the Arab world, as a way to document not just the existence but the living, flourishing communities of queer individuals in Arabic-speaking countries. Read an interview with the author, Marwan Kaabour, here¹.

music

Mashrou Leila. One of my all-time favorite bands, Mashrou Leila is a Lebanese indie rock band that makes music with political and queer themes. If you’re giving them a listen, start with their final album, Ibn El Leil. The band’s music is featured in the documentary Oriented and the lead singer has a short essay in This Arab is Queer, both mentioned above. The band broke up a few years ago, but individual members are now experimenting with solo careers.

Bashar Murad — I’m so thankful to my friend Kat for introducing me to Bashar’s music. Bashar’s singles, like “Maskhara,” explore the disillusioning reality of living in Palestine under Israeli rule.

My absolute fave from Bashar is his song “Ilkul 3am Bitjawaz” (“Everyone’s Getting Married”) about the dread of turning 30, feeling so far from an “adult” life, and disappointing family by not marrying (in Bashar’s case, by not marrying a woman). To me, his music beautifully transcends borders and captures the experience of a non-traditional young adulthood. Earlier this year, I spoke with Kat about Bashar² and his unexpected bid to represent Iceland during this year’s Eurovision song contest and the voting scandal that ensued.

podcasts

Eib — Eib (from Sowt Network) is an Arabic language podcast exploring women’s and LGBTQ issues around the Arab world. This is one of the few podcasts I listen to on a weekly basis, partly because it’s audacious (“eib” is a horrid word that combines the concepts of “shame” and “taboo”) in it’s exploration of “eib” topics, topics too shameful to discuss, and partly because I love how it expands my Arabic vocabulary and comprehension of various dialects.

They go deep on theoretical concepts sometimes, which to be honest I would have never been able to understand in Arabic if I didn’t have a beginner knowledge of literary theory from college. I wish that each episode had a transcript that could be translated, but unfortunately this one is for the Arabic-speaking girlies only!

I wasn’t able to find a podcast that covers queer Arabs, in English, that I would genuinely recommend, but it doesn’t hurt for you to search for one :)

magz + maps

My Kali — bilingual queer webzine featuring voices from the Arab world

queering the map — you’ve definitely heard of this one. When it’s not down, the website is incredible, and I love browsing through the pins on Arab countries.

instagram inspo pages

🌈∆ 🌈 Divaz of Arabia 🌈∆ 🌈 Takweer 🌈∆ 🌈 Artqueerhabibi 🌈∆ 🌈 DepotVenteBeirut 🌈∆ 🌈

sara

Lastly, I need to ask you to do me a favour: will you carry Sara Hegazi’s story with you? Sara was a lesbian activist that dared to fly a rainbow flag at a Mashrou Leila concert in 2017 in Cairo, Egypt. She was arrested at the concert and detained by Egyptian authorities for 3 months, enduring torture through her sentence. Sara sought asylum in Canada, but in 2020, took her own life due to ongoing trauma from her imprisonment. This past June 14th marked four years since her passing.

I’ve never stopped thinking Sara since I learned her story. Her memory lives on in almost everything I mentioned in this list — Artqueerhabibi’s Instagram page made a tribute to her (which I used as the image for this post), My Kali wrote an essay about her legacy, Mashrou Leila’s violinist Haig Papazian wrote about the rainbow flag she waved at his band’s concert for the NYT, and an entire essay is dedicated to Sara in This Arab is Queer and how news of her death altered the narrator’s relationship with her own mother.

Sara’s is a heartbreaking story but she lived her life with hope for a safe future for the queer community, and for their acceptance in the Arab world. The least I feel I can do for her is carry that hope for change with me.

more more more

Looking for more? I didn’t want to overwhelm with links, but here’s some more recs: Letterboxed — list of queer Arab film (129 titles)

Arab Film and Media Institute — list of queer Arab film

A reddit thread crowdsourcing queer Arab musicians and singers

Several of the contributors to This Arab is Queer are writers with published work. Google them to check out their work!

🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈 ∆ 🌈

this june, i’m sending an enormous 🖕 to the zionist entity’s pinkwashing of the palestinian queer experience, to the false premise that arabs aren’t civilized enough to have gay rights, and pretending as if zio bombs don’t kill queer palestinians just as indiscriminately as they do the straight ones.

and a big 🖕 to the corporations that have co-opted the rainbow flag for PR reasons without supporting the material conditions that would make life easier for the LGBTQ+ community.

to everyone else, i wish you a happy pride.

1. “Marwan Kaabour’s New Book Maps the Queer Arab World Through Local Slang” — Edwin Nasr, AnOther. 6 June 2024. https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/15677/the-queer-arab-glossary-book-marwan-kaabour-interview

2. “a Chat with Kat about Eurovision” — Lala Thaddeus, i was cooking. 16 March 2024. https://lalathad.substack.com/p/a-chat-with-kat-about-eurovision