The Story of HELEM

Introduction

This article is an account of the formation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) group, Himaya Lubnaniya lil Mithliyeen wal Mithliyat (HELEM). In Arabic, the name means "Lebanese protection for gays and lesbians," and its acronym means "dream." HELEM formed in Lebanon in the early 2000s, after a decade that saw the opening of the debate on sexuality and sexual orientation in the region in the context of the war on terror, rapid economic liberalization, imperialist intervention, and the growth of a multi-faceted movement for resistance. I tell the story of HELEM as one of the many participants in its founding, attempting to clarify some of the misconceptions based on fleeting second-hand accounts and heavily edited journalism, academic bias, and political homophobia among civil society and regional intelligentsia. This article also puts the formation of HELEM back into the context of more general struggles and rapid regional transformation, especially in cities such as Beirut, where HELEM was founded. It tackles obstacles to fulfilling sexual rights in Lebanon and tries to identify limits of the growing toleration of sexual non-conformity by the state, based on an analysis of the class nature of the position and the impact of Western intervention. It also highlights an alternative discourse beginning to emerge within the new movements for sexual rights around the world, re-linking these movements with universal struggles for social justice.

Men Who Do Not Have Sex with Women, and Women Who Do not Have Sex with Men

The attitude of Lebanese society toward homosexuality is linked with a social order that forces people into confessional identities based on classifications imposed by the Ottomans and pressure from European imperialism in the nineteenth century. The religious and sectarian establishment acts as an interlocutor between citizens and the formal entity of the modern state. Officially, relationships in Lebanon are defined by heterosexual marriage, as they are everywhere else in the postcolonial world. Lebanon is a multi-religious country, and predilection toward heterosexuality serves as a point of concurrence for both Islam and Christianity. Supported by the constitution, laws governing the personal status of individuals are based on religion, and each Lebanese citizen must follow his or her sect's personal status codes related to marriage, inheritance, and so forth.

Homosexual practices are criminalized in the Penal Code of Lebanon, under the moniker of "unnatural sexual intercourse" ¹ (Republic of Lebanon 1943, Article 534), specifically sexual intercourse that includes anal penetration. It was derived from Vichy legislation during the so-called French mandate on Lebanon and goes against traditional Islamic interpretation of such practices (El-Rouayheb 2005). In order not to fall into contradiction with the Napoleonic Code, Lebanon criminalized homosexual acts with a punishment of imprisonment of up to one year. Expression of non-conforming gender identity is usually prosecuted under several other articles regulating public morality. ²

Post colonial regimes inherited such laws and did nothing to reverse them. Emphasis on nationalism meant that a new national identity had to be created, based on already outdated Western notions. In Lebanon, the identity of the emerging middle class at the end of the nineteenth century was formed by two apparently contradicting currents: on one hand, the remnants of the feudal/religious order, and, on the other hand, a new emerging identity that comes with the modern state, based on capitalist notions of nuclear family, upward social mobility, and proscribed gender roles. ³ The same period also saw the gradual disappearance of homoerotic poetry that was prevalent during the rule of the Islamic empires (El-Rouayheb 2005).

The ambiguity of such laws, and their reference to an imagined state of morality or natural order, promotes abuses and acts of hatred directed against non-conforming individuals, especially sexual non-conformists such as homosexuals: from discrimination in employment and arbitrary dismissal, to limited access to housing, health, and social services, to political and financial extortion. These laws also create a taboo on discussing sexuality, which goes in tandem with the agendas of the political and religious elite who want to maintain control over a conservative society. The application of Article...