Gay Muslims party in Berlin, nervously
Bigotry will get you - no matter where you
party.
BERLIN: Six men whirled faster and faster in the
center of the nightclub, arms slung over one another’s shoulders,
performing a traditional circle dance popular in Turkey and the Middle
East.
Nothing unusual, given the German capital’s large Muslim population. But most of the people filling the dance floor Saturday at the club SO36 in the Kreuzberg neighborhood were gay, lesbian or bisexual, and of Turkish or Arab background…
Safety and secrecy come up regularly in conversations with guests, who laugh and dance but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.
“Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I’m a foreigner, and in the other because I’m a queen,” said Fatma Souad, the event’s organizer and master of ceremonies. Souad, 43, a transgender performer born in Ankara as a boy named Ali, has put on the party for over a decade…
Hasan, a 21-year-old Arab man, sitting at a table in the club’s quieter adjoining café, declined to give his last name, saying: “They would kill me. My brothers would kill me.” Asked whether he meant this figuratively, he responded, “No, I mean they would kill me.”
Or you could be a gay Christian, say, in Houston.
Nothing unusual, given the German capital’s large Muslim population. But most of the people filling the dance floor Saturday at the club SO36 in the Kreuzberg neighborhood were gay, lesbian or bisexual, and of Turkish or Arab background…
Safety and secrecy come up regularly in conversations with guests, who laugh and dance but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.
“Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I’m a foreigner, and in the other because I’m a queen,” said Fatma Souad, the event’s organizer and master of ceremonies. Souad, 43, a transgender performer born in Ankara as a boy named Ali, has put on the party for over a decade…
Hasan, a 21-year-old Arab man, sitting at a table in the club’s quieter adjoining café, declined to give his last name, saying: “They would kill me. My brothers would kill me.” Asked whether he meant this figuratively, he responded, “No, I mean they would kill me.”
Or you could be a gay Christian, say, in Houston.
Posted: Thu - January 3, 2008 at 07:06 AM