In the streets of Cairo, everyone who knows him calls him Raphael: a dark-haired boy with a slightly olive complexion, in no way unlike thousands of others of his age in this region of the world. Few, very few, know that before Raphael there was another name and another identity, the one that is still written on his documents. Which bring this young man back to the life he was before, the one he left behind when he decided to abandon the body of a woman in which he was born to fully marry that of a man to whom he feels he belongs.
Of his transition, Raphael Khoury, Jordanian by birth, now living between Europe and Cairo, he decided to make one of the elements of his art. Tonight he will be among the protagonists of Queer Dada, marathon of queer and trans writers from Brazil, Jordan, United States, Holland, Italy organized by the Communication Department of the John Cabot University in Rome, from 6 pm live streaming on Youtube. For this reason, he decided to tackle a topic that, in the Middle East from which he comes, is absolutely taboo, and tell us, starting from his individual experience, what the life of the LGBT + community is like in the Arab world.
How is the situation for the LGBT + community in the Arab world? In recent years there has been a double movement: on the one hand the loud claim of the right to exist, with music, films and festivals. On the other, a wave of refusal, demonstrated by the ban for the Lebanese indie-rock band Mashrou Leila (whose singer is openly gay) to play in Jordan and Egypt and culminated in the suicide of Egyptian LGBT + activist Sarah Hegazi …
“The two movements are connected. There was a moment, when the Mashrou Leila started talking about these issues, in which freedom was breathed. The authorities didn’t even understand what they were talking about. Now they understand: and we are in the midst of a repressive phase, throughout the region. This is valid for any civil right, from Jordan, to Lebanon, to Egypt, to name but a few. Even more so for ours. It is a terrible repressive phase, very dark, in the midst of a counter-revolution. Before 2011 we thought that it could not get worse, that we had nothing to lose. But we were very wrong: we are in the middle of the Middle Ages “.
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Is that what your performance will talk about tonight?
“Like all the other participating artists, I will remotely take control of the robot Comm · e, from John Cabot University and let him give voice to my text. Around him there will be only one musician, who will play in the background in full compliance with anti-Covid rules. The public will be connected remotely. The text I will read is taken from a work I am writing about being transsexual and about transsexuals as people erased from history “.
What message will you try to get to the public?
“I live in Berlin. And even there it is difficult to be a transsexual, in the midst of the West and its liberal ideas. Now I’m in Cairo, and no one has any idea of my identity, we can’t talk about it: it’s a very conservative place, there are not even words to describe my transition, the fact that I was born a woman but I am a man. I have a lot of problems every time I have to pull out my passport, because there is my female name and therefore people think Whether it’s not me: I’m a spy, or stolen documents. It’s not easy. In Jordan, my home country, being transgender can get you sentenced to hard labor for three to ten years . This I would like to make you understand “.
So she can’t go home?
“I do. No one has yet been arrested for this law, which was born as a reaction to the fact that the LGBT + movement in recent years has found its voice, even in the Arab world. But it is clear that when I return I have to face several problems: all ‘airport they look at the document with my photo and my female name and hold me still for a long time. The more I proceed with the transition, the harder it is to return. “
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What does your family say?
“For them it is enough not to talk about it. My father is Jordanian, my mother is German: but she too, like him, is very conservative. They lived with dismay my years of open rebellion, when I lived as a declared lesbian. At a certain point I ran away in San Francisco. We had ten years of open confrontation, my mother disowned me and tried to send me to one of those camps where they would like to change your sexual orientation. They can’t accept my transition: we just don’t talk about it. tired of arguing: when I go home I shave off my beard. I don’t say, they don’t ask. They pretend that nothing is happening: as long as the neighbors don’t talk about me, that’s fine. “
Do you have the possibility to change the sex in your passport?
“I’m trying. On the German one. On the Jordanian one it would be impossible. From that point of view I’m very lucky compared to other people who live in the region. It’s a kind of protection.”
What room is there for people like you in countries like Jordan, where you were born, or in Egypt where you are now?
“We keep dreaming. I wrote a work on Arab transgender people: it was staged in Berlin and will be staged in Vienna. I can’t even imagine it being staged here in Cairo or Jordan. They arrest us just because we exist, there isn’t. there is much more we can do. It is very sad to say. But if there is no new revolution, nothing will change for us. “
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