What can I tell you about Iranian queers?

Translation of Arsham Parsi’s speech at Iranian Society for Human Rights Seminar in San Jose, California, June 20-22, 2008

Translated by Ava

Edited by Sarah

Studying the human rights situation in Iran is only possible if all the needs and factors that contribute to its observance are looked at alongside one another. We cannot participate in the field of human rights or even speak about it if it is applied only to one section of society, if a certain social group is excluded from it, or even if its comprehensive analysis is postponed. We cannot correctly prioritize one issue over another because all human rights are equally important. The culture of respecting human rights must be built from the bottom up. If each person obliges themselves to respect others’ rights, it can extend across a large society. We know that respect for the rights of minorities keeps a majority society healthy and strong. But it is not easy to create a society that respects its minorities’ rights, especially minorities who are under pressure from socially constructed taboos. Perseverance, resistance, open mindedness and courage are hallmarks of such a struggle.

The organizers of the three day seminar on Human Rights in Iran, held in San Jose, California must be thanked. This event is quite possibly the first gathering of Iranians to include almost all branches of legal rights and provide an environment for debate, conversation and exchange of ideas. One issue to be discussed is the social rights of queers, which some organizations and activists unfortunately red-flag.

Homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgenders are not only denied social rights, but also must live underground for the sake of their safety and security and must constantly deny who they are. They are placed within rigidly-maintained social constructions. Anything outside the boundaries of social norms is considered deviation. Transgenders must conform so they can at least walk, eat, and drink freely, as they wait, without rights, for a natural end to their lives.

There are many issues that must be talked about and each one of them requires its own special gathering. Since the day I was invited to this event, I’ve been thinking about which issue to discuss. Should I speak about familial pressures which often force children to leave the family? These not only include intolerance, domestic violence, and disownment but, in some cases, murder by a family member. In 2005, in the village of Agahbisheh, near the city of Rasht, a father lit his 18-year-old son on fire with gasoline after discovering his homosexuality.

Or, I pondered, should I speak of the society that wants the right to work, live, enjoy social welfare, respect for rights, etc., only for itself and is frightened of accepting the queer community, which only gives queers another reason to run away from society; a society that allows itself to make judgments about people’s behavior and deems them “social deviants” because it lacks enough information about basic human rights;  a society that considers itself the majority and believes it is the arbitrator of natural social behavior?

Or should I speak of the government that systematically violates the rights of queers with its laws and has chosen for them the punishment of death? Torture and death for one’s sexuality are not offered as choices. So queers are forced to flee once more, this time from their nationality and citizenship. In 2004 I asked one of my queer friends, who as a result of warnings from the government had to flee the country, “where do you want to go?” He said “I don’t know. Maybe another place. A place where I can be myself and they’ll accept me the way I am and won’t judge me based on this one thing.” On that day neither he nor I knew that in that other place, we would have to struggle with the same problems.

Perhaps I should speak about the pressures from the Iranian community outside the country. A society of people who themselves have left Iran due to problems they faced there but do not try to understand problems others face. It makes no difference whether they left the country as an immigrant or as a refugee. People usually leave with the cultural attitude they have adopted from society and are unwilling to break with unjust social customs. As evidence for this claim I can tell you that in the case of many of my friends outside the country, when their Iranian landlords find out about their sexual orientation, they are told to move out because it is believed their presence is sacrilegious. But when it comes to talking about the elimination of social pressures such as enforced hijab or the ban on alcoholic drinks, the landlord takes a position of complete support, unaware that all these issues are amongst peoples’ rights. Opposition towards Islamic hijab and opposition towards torture for sexual orientation are two issues that cannot be separated from one another. Respect for human rights has no room for exceptions.

Perhaps I should speak of the Iranian opposition organizations, which usually do not recognize the rights of Iranian queers as legitimate human rights issues. These opposition groups are not concerned about queer rights, but rather see governmental change as their primary goal. They believe first, the government must change and, after that, everything else will automatically follow. But if one listens to their conversations one understands that they do not recognize the most basic human rights, which are freedom of choice and control over one’s body. Once I asked an opposition activist who was passionate about changing the regime and having a democratic Iran, “what do you want to introduce into this democratic Iran? What new thing do you offer that corresponds with universal human rights? You cannot accept people’s sexual orientations. You cannot accept that not all members of a society must function the same way and that it is our differences that create values. How can you claim and defend democracy and freedom of opinion? This way of thinking can be a sign that in the future Iran you speak of, queers will have no rights, they will be abandoned by their families, persecuted by society and the government, and will ultimately have to flee. We will witness the same story that exists today.”

Really, my question is: in Iranian news agencies outside of Iran, especially in television, why is there not equal representation when it comes to these human rights issues? There are many programs on women’s rights, children, political activists, religious and ethnic rights, etc., but the number of aired programs that deal with queer rights is less than the number of fingers on one hand.  Isn’t this unequal representation of human rights issues done by activist themselves? Maybe I should speak of human rights activists; of activists who stand on the platform of human rights and exclude the rights of Iranian queers. We do not want to believe the defenders of human rights are unaware of queer rights, but maybe this silence comes from the heavy price of speaking out on a social taboo. These taboos are so entrenched that activists remove our names from the signature list of their campaigns, although with our permission, because they do not want to defend one right at the cost of losing another. Maybe this is a career choice but it is not right. We cannot push a society to the heights of progress while excluding a section of this very society. Humans are connected to one another like a chain and respecting one person’s rights depends on the respect of another’s. One of my positive experiences in this regard has to do with my attendance at a conference with my dear friend Lily Pourzand in 2007. The last sentence from my speech was: queer rights are human rights. Lily Pourzand began her speech with: women’s rights are human rights.

We cannot speak of women’s right and forget about queer rights because queers are a part of women’s society. We cannot speak of worker’s rights and not speak of queer rights because queers are part of the working society. We cannot speak of the rights of political activists and forget about queer rights because many queers are politically active. We cannot speak of the rights of religious minorities and not include queer rights because many queers see themselves as religious people. We cannot speak of children’s rights and ignore the queer community because there many queer kids who have been persecuted or await bleak futures. We cannot speak of the rights of ethnic minorities and not speak of queers because queers do not belong to only one region of Iran. I have pointed out to the queer issues in each case to emphasize that Iranian queers are not a small or exceptional group. The diversity is such that we cannot analyze them within a particular box. They are an undeniable part of every society. A person’s sexual orientation should not separate them from other sectors of society.

Maybe I should speak about social taboos; taboos that limit a judicial lawyer to the point that he cannot take up the case of an imprisoned queer awaiting death because he thinks to himself ‘if I take this case, I will have to answer countless questions that arise from people’s ignorance’. Or because his job security might be put at risk. In an event in Toronto one of my friends shed tears as he spoke of his late father who had been a respected lawyer in Iran. His father has been appointed as the defense lawyer for a homosexual youth, and despite his efforts he was unable to save the life of this young man. He had been threatened with murder if he pursued the case any further. This father harboured a life-long guilty conscience about not being able to save the life of that innocent boy. I cannot give the name of that lawyer because his family is still under pressure as a result of this incident.

I honestly don’t know which of these issues to talk about in this seminar. Our time is limited and opening such issues for analysis requires a greater amount of time. But I think each one of us present here can choose one of these issues, based on past activism or personal interest, and work towards eliminating obstacles that prevent those rights from being respected. These efforts can even be achieved with a single decisive sentence. In January of 2007 the Iranian Queer Organization held a one-day human rights symposium in Toronto. Dr. Haideh Moghissi and Dr. Shahrzad Mojab were amongst the speakers. When their names were published they both received numerous messages from the Iranian community in Toronto to the effect of: ‘do you know where you are going to speak? Do you know what kind of organization this is?’ Dr. Moghissi later said to me “I told them ‘yes, I know what kind of organization this is, and it is very important that I speak there.’” And she did speak at the symposium. Not only her but Dr. Mojab, Dr. Baraheni and other notable people in the Iranian community and this itself was a declaration of support, a support that echoed widely. News websites of the Iranian government reported this symposium and published the names of speakers that attended it. Our speakers did not only give speeches, they demonstrated a civil struggle. A number of articles were written against Dr. Baraheni, criticizing him for defending queers and queer rights. They tried to take all of his other political activities under the microscope but the more they wrote the more they discredited themselves. Dr. Baraheni told me over a telephone conversation that it doesn’t matter these days what others say or write. The important thing is they have the right to express their opinion. This was one of the lessons I learned. We must work for the rights that we have. If we don’t, then we doubt the legitimacy of those rights. Hardships and existing pressures involved in this kind of civil struggle are expected. The same way that in a male-dominated society it is hard to accept that a woman is equal to a man and deserves equal rights, and such a claim is bound to raise reactions, it is a challenge for that same society to accept queers as human being with equal rights.

In my opinion, these civil struggles must continue. When distinguished Iranian activists speak about the rights of Iranian queer minorities and try to break this taboo, a judicial lawyer in Iran will not be scared if his client is queer. A human rights activist will not be scared to speak about queer rights. Other writers and journalists will not be scared to write about queers and as a result human rights will expand. Perhaps social taboos are one obstacle that prevents human rights from being respected, and the breaking of those taboos is the responsibility of those that have the media in their hands. When they speak in society, their words echo. Why would it be a problem if Shirin Ebad, Mehrangiz Kar, Dr. Karim Lahiji, Dr. Mansoor Farhang, Dr. Reza Afshari, Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hekam, Dr. Nahid Mozafari, Dr. Jaleh Pirnazar, Elaheh Amani, Fariba Davoodi Mohajer, Parastoo Faroohar, Monireh Baradaran, Iraj Mosdaghi, Dr. Hadi Ghaemi, Bahareh Monshi Roodsari, Mehdi Koohestani, Dr. Anothony Chiss, Neda Shahid Yazdi, Mohamadreza Moini, Dr. Alireza Azizi, Dr. Soheila Vahdati, Araz Fani, Hossein Mahootiha, Dr. Kaveh Ehsani, and other friends and human rights activists spoke more than before about the rights of Iranian queers?

I hope that day will soon arrive.

Arsham Parsi

20^th of June, 2008     

San Jose, California  

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