If I Were in Iraq...

As often as the LGBT community can point to other developed nations like the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain that have far more extensive protections and civil rights guarantees than we do here in the U.S., sometimes it also pays to remember that the very occurrence of these debates puts us decades ahead of some of the other countries in the world. A rather dark example of the kind of persecution faced by gays, lesbians, and transgender people can be found in a country that is on the news every night for its myriad assortment of attacks and other violence.

Apparently, the rise of Iranian-backed Shia militias and elements within the Iraqi army has led to a “virtual pogrom” of Iraqi gays, according to PlanetOut Network. To start in a country that is already highly intolerant of the underground LGBT community is bad enough. To add to that situation  roaming, heavily armed, religiously-inspired paramilitary groups virtually begs for systematic persecution and destruction of gays, lesbians, and transgender people.

 

Imagine the fate of this Iraqi boy, Ahmed Khalil. You are fourteen, and your family lives in desperate poverty. You are surrounded by violent gun clashes, restrictive security measures, power shortages, and a pressing lack of running water and food. You are afraid to leave your house to even go to the market. As if this were not enough, you are despised, loathed, and threatened for your sexual orientation, when it is known. You become a prostitute. You are fourteen.  Perhaps your family forced you to become one. Perhaps you do it in order to save your family from starvation. Regardless, you have been forced by your circumstances into the most degrading and intolerable roles for a human.  You are fourteen. And one day, perhaps tipped off by a neighbor, or an arrested client, army soldiers pull up to your door, drag you into the street, and shoot you repeatedly, first in the head, then into the rest of your body.

 

As a teenager, my gut tightens and tumbles imagining the position of a fourteen year-old boy in such a situation. The LGTB movement in the United States has generally been focused on developments in our own country, and for the most part this makes perfect sense. We have no shortage of battles to fight in this country, and our community will benefit the most from the victories we win here at home.

 

But perhaps it is time to lift our gazes beyond our city-councils, our statehouse, our Congress and our courts and to focus a little more attention on the global LGBT community to which we belong. Our country’s position in Iraq, legitimate or not, makes the fate of the LGBT community in Iraq part of our business. Having American forces in Baghdad that do not even acknowledge the systematic killings based on sexual orientation is analogous to the UNAMIR force in Rwanda that did virtually nothing, thanks to contributing nations, to attempt to intervene in the genocide. 

 

I am not suggesting that no attention is being paid this issue, or that the U.S. LGBT community ought to devote exhaustive resources to aiding oppressed LGBT communities throughout the world. But we can bring attention to the gruesome fates of people, even kids, like Ahmed Khalil. Even now in the House, HR 2265, the Responsibility to Iraqi Refugees Act of 2007, would prioritize the authorization of refugee status for, among other groups, Iraqi gays and lesbians “subject to violence, intimidation, or discrimination by state or non-state actors.” A little noise goes a long way in countries where so few have a voice.