Dr Nour Abu Assab

This article sheds light on the implications of the imposition of decontextualized hegemonic narratives around gender and sexuality on Arabic-speaking countries and the appropriation of intersectionality as a tool for resistance and consciousness raising by NGO-ized educational programs, as well as the importance of combining both intersectional and decolonial approaches in relation to education in general and to gender and sexuality education in particular. To do so, we rely on analyses of public discourses around LGBTQ rights, data from our experience leading gender and sexuality educational programs through the Centre for Transnational Development and Collaboration for over 1,400 individuals in the Global North and the Global South, and assessments of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) trainings carried out by the majority of NGOs focusing on LGBTQ education in Arabic-speaking countries.

There have been many attempts to address gender and sexual rights in the MENA region, a majority of which have focused on women’s empowerment and gender equality. More recently the rights of LGBTQI people have taken centre stage in development efforts and in the agendas of policy makers. This report highlights some major problems in the frameworks underpinning these efforts, despite their well-meant intentions. In this report, we shed light on the implications of adopting universalist LGBTQI identity categories within international humanitarian and development programming. Furthermore, this report highlights how LGBTQI identity categories often encourage tensions within and between communities, and even within communities of non-normative people, often undermining the space for change and collaboration on the one hand, and inclusivity on the other. This report also highlights the failure of international protection mechanisms to offer adequate support to those displaced due to non-normative sexual practices. The LGBTQI categories in case of applications for asylum is also problematized in this paper, as it has proven to be exclusionary to those at risk of SPGP violence but who do not necessarily identify as LGBTQI. Current international protection mechanisms have also to a great extent contributed to an image of a uniform LGBTQI identity, an identity that fits within stereotypes of non-normative people. Within these identities, there is a lack of tolerance for difference and an implication of uniformity that does not apply to all of the letters of the LGBTQI. Within this report there is also a country overview of the legal situation affecting LGBTQI people across the region

Turkey has been labelled, for a long time, as the most welcoming country to Syrian refugees, taking in the largest number of refugees in the region. Due to this misconception, in addition to other political factors, little research has been carried out about the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey, and even less research has been conducted to address the dierential experiences of Syrian refugee women and sexual minorities in Turkey. Building on, and complementing, the UN’s 3RP (Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan 2015-16 in Response to the Syria Crisis), this report focuses on the needs and situation of both Syrian refugee women and LGBTQ individuals through a gender analysis of Syrian refugees situation in Turkey. Between March and October 2015, CTDC carried out an extensive literature review, social media analysis, and collected primary data in Turkey, including in-depth interviews, ethnographic data and meetings. This research aims to assess the ways through which issues related to gender and sexuality have been addressed and ignored when dealing with the Syrian refugee population in Turkey. The research also aims to provide an overall comprehensive picture of the situation, through reviewing the main issues facing Syrian refugee women, men and LGBTQ groups through a gender analysis of their situation.

In this conversation, Nof Nasser Eddin and Nour Abu-Assab—the founders
and directors of the Centre for Transnational Development and Collaboration (CTDC)—discuss the importance of decolonial approaches to studying refugee migration. In so doing, they draw on their research, consultancy, and advocacy work at CTDC, a London-based intersectional multidisciplinary Feminist Consultancy that focuses in particular on dynamics in Arabic-speaking countries and that has a goal to build communities and movements, through an approach that is both academic and grassroots-centred. CTDC attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice through its innovative-ly transformative programmes, which include mentorship, educational programmes, trainings, and research.

Often, in mainstream institutions, similar to the LSE and many other universities in the Global North, voices from the margin and the Global South are only allowed to be vocalised in ways similar to those of informants, rather than knowledge producers. The Sexualities and LGBT Activism in the Middle East and North Africa workshop did the opposite. Due to our awareness of what such institutions represent, we decided to shed light on the marginalisation of intersectional feminist knowledge, within academic institutions and in civil society activism. In our talk, ‘Transnational Reflections on Women-led Organising around Gender and Sexuality’, we refused to provide descriptions about ourselves and our experiences, as queer women from Arabic-speaking countries. Instead, we discussed the systematic silencing of certain women’s voices and of discourses that reject mainstream, hegemonic western narratives -especially when it comes to gender and sexuality studies from and about the Global South.

The panel intentionally comprised of women from Arabic-speaking countries, thanks to the organisers of the one-day event. It was also particularly refreshing that all women on the panel addressed the need to produce context and language-specific forms of knowledge around gender and sexuality in the region, and in the Global South more broadly. Our talk shed light on the importance of creating discourses and narratives that centre people’s interpretation of their own realities and truths, while still demonstrating transnational linkages between struggles.

By doing so, we aimed to rethink transnational solidarities, in ways that do not compromise context-specificity. We also addressed the silencing of knowledge that serves to defy universalised narratives and bring to light structures of oppression that operate on a global level. Through examples, we demonstrated how such silencing occurs within different institutions, including academic disciplines, identity-based civil society organisations, mainstream state-affiliated feminist organisations, colonial institutions of states in the Global North, as well as male-led organisations. We aimed to expose both the colonial and patriarchal nature of silencing intersectional, political, decolonial feminist research -a process also reflected in the lack of funding for research that seeks to defy boundaries imposed by western hegemonies.

In this talk, we called for the adoption of queer intersectional feminist approaches to the production of different forms of knowledge. Queer research and knowledge production derives its importance, not from ‘queer’ as an identity category, but rather as a method and tool that disrupts the status quo of knowledge produced in and about Arabic-speaking countries. More often than not, such knowledge reinforces stereotypes rather than challenge structures of oppression. Queering knowledge pushes us to challenge these structures including, but not limited to, colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism, which are considered global phenomena. It also helps situate people’s lived experiences and material realities within those structures, instead of providing uncritical data whereby people are characterised as ‘exotic’, ‘different’ and ‘other’. Such descriptions treat individuals as the problem, instead of pointing to the structures that create differences in their material realities. Our arguments revolved around five examples of ways in which intersectional feminist research that disrupts mainstream knowledge production is discouraged. In this piece, we draw on two examples.

The first example demonstrated the ways in which organisations and initiatives that get the majority of funding for gender and sexuality work often reinforce western terminologies, namely LGBT identity categories that are depoliticised and decontextualised (See Nasser-Eddin, et. al, 2018). While our research demonstrates that in most cases, LGBT identity categories do not have resonance in Arabic-speaking countries, our findings are often ignored when presented to funders and organisations on the ground. For example, during a meeting with a policy maker from the Global North, we explained that the use of such LGBT language is not suitable in Arabic-speaking countries, as it overlooks people’s material realities, particularly the ways in which they relate to gender and sexuality in this case. His response was: “we [LGBT people] are many, and we are everywhere. There is no need change language.” Such assumptions are simplistic and oppressive to those who do not agree with the terminology, as well as those who have non-normative genders and sexualities but do not necessarily identify with identity categories and/or do not have access to such language. This imposition of universalised identity categories, a claim to an ‘LGBT’ nation across different contexts, silences feminist research that challenges such dominant discourses.

Another example of this silencing was when we carried out intersectional feminist research focused on the reasons behind women’s marginalisation within civil society groups and organisations. The criticism we received for this piece of research was that quotes from interviews were misleading and not representative, and that the language used was very ‘negative’. Such criticism was levelled at us due to the fact that the findings fundamentally questioned the existence of many civil society organisations that claim to be working on gender, while actually marginalising women through their practices. These examples demonstrate ways in which the silencing of feminist knowledge is patriarchal, imperialist, neoliberal and serves the agenda of the global elite, rather those who are marginalised. Also, such examples can certainly be drawn from other contexts, and are not limited to Arabic-speaking countries. Challenging this silencing requires us to rethink transnational feminist solidarities. In order to overcome the borders and boundaries imposed on feminist knowledge production, we need to stand together in solidarity without universalising and compromising intersectionality.

This toolkit provides specific guidance for those interested in gender and sexuality trainings in Arabic-speaking countries. This document is a compilation of tips and advices to educators and trainers around gender and sexuality issues in the Arabic-speaking region.

The toolkit is divided into two main sections, the first section provides guidance in relation to the content necessary for gender and sexual trainings and the second section provides practical tips for the teaching part of gender and sexuality trainings. The toolkit draws on examples, exercises and previous experience providing gender and sexuality trainings that move beyond women’s rights and sexual orientation and gender identity trainings (SOGI). These methods that we use in gender and sexuality workshops have been tested in different contexts and countries and have been delivered to a variety of audiences from different backgrounds. This toolkit by no means represents a comprehensive gender and sexuality curriculum, but rather tips and tools that facilitate changing people’s perceptions around gender and sexuality

توفر مجموعة الأدوات هذه توجيهات محددة للمهتمين/ات بالتدريبات التي تعنى بقضايا الجندر والجنسانية والجسد في الدول الناطقة باللغة العربية. يشتمل هذا الملف على مجموعة من الإرشادات والنصائح للمعلمين/ات والمدربين/ات في قضايا الجندر والجنسانية والجسد في الدول الناطقة باللغة العربية.

وتنقسم مجموعة الأدوات هذه إلى شطرين رئيسيين. يقدم الشطر الأول إرشادات تتعلق بالمحتوى الضروري للتدريبات التي تعنى بقضايا الجندر والجنسانية والجسد. أما الشطر الثاني فيقدم نصائح عملية حول تدريس مسائل الجندر والجنسانية والجسد خلال التدريبات. وتعتمد مجموعة الأدوات على أمثلة وتمارين وخبرات سابقة في تقديم التدريبات التي تعنى بقضايا الجيم، والتي تتجاوز حقوق المرأة والتوجه الجنسي والتدريب المعني بالهوية الجنسية .(SOGI) وقد تم اختبار هذه الوسائل، التي نستخدمها عادة في ورش العمل المتعلقة بأمور الجيم، في سياقات ودول مختلفة وتم تقديمها لمجموعة متنوعة من الجماهير من خلفيات مختلفة. لا تمثل مجموعة الأدوات هذه منهاجاً شاملاً حول قضايا الجندر والجنسانية. وإنما هي بالأحرى مجموعة من النصائح والأدوات التي تساعد على تغيير التصورات السائدة لدى الناس.

Eight years into the Syrian crisis, Syrian civil society is still considered relatively nascent in comparison to civil society actors in neighbouring countries. Despite the fact that international agencies and donor governments have been repeatedly highlighting the importance of involving women in civil society organising, the voices of Syrian women in civil society and in the political arena are considered largely ‘absent’ (Suliman, 2018). However, the absence of such voices does not necessarily mean that Syrian women are not involved in civil society activism, or in political activism, or at the grassroots level. The importance of this research derives above all from the importance of including women’s voices in civil society, as with the absence of their voices, their needs, opinions and perspectives are side-lined as well. In addition to that, the importance of including women into civil society and the importance of a civil society that satisfies the needs of women are often forgotten in mainstream positivist research.

In light of the recent attention to the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of non-normative people in the Middle East and North Africa, this article does not seek to offer alternatives to systems of justice. Instead, our argument revolves around the need to turn the concept of justice on its head, by demonstrating that justice within the context of the nation-state is in its essence a de facto and de jure mechanism of policing and surveillance. To do so, this article draws on Michael Foucault's notion of state-phobia from a de-colonial perspective, intersectional feminist theory, and Hisham Sharabi's conceptualisation of the Arab-state as neo-patriarchal. This article highlights the need to move away from the post-colonial benevolent imaginary of the state, as a result of people's desire for self-determination, to a more realistic de-colonial conceptualisation of nation-states that emerged post-colonisation, as sites of oppression. This article will also shed light on the role of civil society in reinforcing the unjust justice sought within nation-state frameworks by drawing on the examples of the recent crackdown on non-normative people in Egypt, and the example of non-normative Palestinians living under occupation. The Egyptian and Palestinian cases are, respectively, one of an allegedly sovereign state that overtly restricts gender and sexual freedom, and another of an occupying state that nominally guarantees gender and sexual rights. These examples are used to demonstrate the theoretical underpinnings of this article, through which we seek to problematise and break binaries of justice versus injustice, and the state versus civil society, in an attempt to queer the concept of justice.

In this article, we want to start a conversation about representation; its implications, consequences and what it reflects on the ground. We do so in an attempt to shed light on the importance of questioning one’s positionality within any platform. We do not live in a vacuum. Our actions, reactions, words and positions exist within larger structures and institutions. It is important to question ourselves when we are ‘given a platform’: what end does our presence serve? To what extent are we benefitting the people and causes we care about? How can we use our platforms to advocate for rights without marginalising others? How can we use our voices without overshadowing other voices? And, most importantly, how can we avoid being used as tokens?

In recent years, LGBTQI rights have become central to debates around international development, human rights, refugee protection, and diversity. Yet research and experience in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) reveals significant problems with LGBTQI as a way of identifying individuals who do not conform to heterosexual and binary gender norms, in order to support their rights. In this article, we draw on experience of working to advance gender and sexual rights to illustrate the shortcomings of LGBTQI identity categories, and use findings from the Centre for Transnational Development and Collaboration’s (CTDC) four-year programme of research into LGBTQI rights in the MENA region to support our argument further. This research identified major problems in policies and debates on the rights of individuals whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity differs from the norm. In response to this, CTDC has developed a tool to address rights in programme development and advocacy, using a new approach, Sexual Practice and Gender Performance (SPGP), for work in the MENA region.

A lack of funding for human rights based HIV/AIDS advocacy programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has undermined the effectiveness of prevention strategies, leading to an alarming increase in HIV/AIDS cases across the region. This is because a lot of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) face stigma and taboo as a result of certain gender and sexual norms, which are institutionalised at the state level in legal and penal systems. Such approaches heightened the vulnerability of at-risk group by shifting the burden of responsibility on already marginalised communities such as men who have sex with men (MSM), LGBTQ, women, children and refugees/asylum seekers. Because of this, we need to prioritise alternatives to state-centric prevention strategies, creating programmes that emphasise human rights-based responses led by PLWHA run community-based organisations (CBOs). In light of the extensive literature on this topic, and CTDC's own research, we believe that mainstreaming such approaches in the MENA region will be able to: a) More effectively engage marginalised communities in HIV/AIDS prevention projects, leading to more inclusive programming overall. b) Enhance the sustainability of projects by filling in critical gaps or changing existing narratives about the stigma and discrimination faced by vulnerable groups. c) Empower communities, and enhance the capacity of PLWHAs to advocate for their rights. d) Serve as a systematic feedback loop for state-centric approaches to improve their practice at the regional and international level.

There have been many attempts to address gender and sexual rights in the MENA region, a majority of which have focused on women’s empowerment and gender equality. More recently the rights of LGBTQI people have taken centre stage in development efforts and in the agendas of policy makers. This report highlights some major problems in the frameworks underpinning these efforts, despite their well-meant intentions. In this report, we shed light on the implications of adopting universalist LGBTQI identity categories within international humanitarian and development programming. Furthermore, this report highlights how LGBTQI identity categories often encourage tensions within and between communities, and even within communities of non-normative people, often undermining the space for change and collaboration on the one hand, and inclusivity on the other. This report also highlights the failure of international protection mechanisms to offer adequate support to those displaced due to non-normative sexual practices. The LGBTQI categories in case of applications for asylum is also problematized in this paper, as it has proven to be exclusionary to those at risk of SPGP violence but who do not necessarily identify as LGBTQI. Current international protection mechanisms have also to a great extent contributed to an image of a uniform LGBTQI identity, an identity that fits within stereotypes of non-normative people. Within these identities, there is a lack of tolerance for difference and an implication of uniformity that does not apply to all of the letters of the LGBTQI. Within this report there is also a country overview of the legal situation affecting LGBTQI people across the region.

In this interdisciplinary dialogue, we will deliberate on our frames of “feminist peace”. We attend to this conversation as queer feminist scholars whose work cuts across various disciplines including education and peace studies, sociology and queer studies, sexuality and policy studies. Using a decolonial feminist methodology, “friendship/kitchen table” conversation we address different questions that address the coloniality of gender as it intersects with ‘peace’, race and empire. We aim to unpack our notions of feminism, peace, and feminist peace by thinking through our geopolitical positionalities (Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, United Kingdom, United States), as well as our different academic, activist and practice fields and genealogies. We centre differential material realities and structural inequalities, pandemic, racial capitalism, (im)migration, militarization, securitization, violence, and on-going war and conflict. Our guiding questions include: what is our vision of feminist peace? How is our vision informed by our intersectional, queer, transnational and decolonial feminist politics and praxis? How does this vision allow us to articulate and activate different political demands that work towards transformative forms of justice?