The Common Ills: Queer Afghans Just Want to Be Your Neighbor

Monday, August 15, 2022

Queer Afghans Just Want to Be Your Neighbor

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TODAY

For these Afghan refugees, leaving their war-torn country is only half the battle.

– with reporting by Safina Nabi from Berlin, Germany

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Hardships + ray of hope

Dangerous flight

It was a breezy summer afternoon when 27-year old Ahmed sat fiddling with a mobile phone in a tiny white-walled room in a refugee camp three hours west of Berlin. Through a translator in Kabul who helps me by telephone, I learned that Ahmed (who uses they/them pronouns) was afraid. Their partner had left the refugee camp two hours earlier to get provisions at a market, and Ahmed was worried. Ahmed explained through the translator that they would remain restless until their partner returned.

Same-sex intimacy was punishable by imprisonment or death in Afghanistan, even before the Taliban returned to power. Since then, survival for queer Afghans in their home country has become nearly impossible.

“They will kill you, and we do not want to lose you,” one relative often told Ahmed. The family felt it was too dangerous for Ahmed to attempt to flee.

Yet it was also too dangerous to stay.

Ahmed hid at multiple locations in Afghanistan for six months before leaving the country with their partner. The two first went to Pakistan and then, in March, arrived in Germany, where they settled in this camp outside Berlin.

A perilous landing

Ahmed was taunted and ridiculed by other Afghan refugees immediately upon arrival at the camp. “People called me names and abused me. Some even touched me inappropriately,” they told me.

Ahmed had imagined that leaving Afghanistan and making a life in Europe would bring a sense of safety and renewal. “I thought, I am heading towards a better place, where I can live a better life.” But it has not been so simple.

As we spoke in that tiny room, Ahmed’s phone rang. It was their partner.

“They are OK,” Ahmed said after hanging up, taking a deep breath and touching their gold-colored bangles with glossy black fingernails.

According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, over 6 million Afghans have been driven from their homes by conflict, violence and poverty. Of those, 3.5 million are displaced within Afghanistan while 2.6 million have fled the country. Facing discrimination from fellow refugees as well as the acute hardships of leaving home behind, some who identify as queer are nonetheless shedding the dual lives they’ve always led and are embracing identifies that feel more authentic to them.

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I am who I am

Born and raised in Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Ahmed has maintained multiple gender identities throughout their life, depending on the context.

“I lived like a man for the family and neighborhood, and like a woman among my peers,” Ahmed told me. “Now, I want to live like a free person without falling into the decided boundaries of gender.”

Sibti, 23, resides in the same camp as Ahmed and also uses they/them pronouns. Back in Afghanistan, Sibti did not hide the truth from family members, who more or less accepted Sibti as queer and did not interfere with their day-to-day life. Yet, neighbors and other relatives taunted Sibti continuously. Then, after the Taliban took over, the taunts became life-threatening.

“Anyone in the neighborhood could have complained to the Taliban about my gender identity. They would have killed me or did whatever they liked,” Sibti said.

Sibti arrived in Berlin this spring and, like Ahmed, has been struggling.

“We don’t know the language, the culture is different,” said Sibti. “These are the things that make our lives comfortable, but they are missing here.”

At the same time, this new life has also provided a certain opportunity. After previously forcing themselves into a binary that did not accommodate their authentic selves, they have left behind the need to be either male or female. They identify as neither, and now they are publicly living that truth. Moving away from family and their previous cultural setting made this possible.

Ahmed said that, here in the camp, they were still discriminated against and ridiculed for their gender identity. Nevertheless, they are hoping things will be different once they move out of the camp and into the city.

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Seeking livelihood, community

In this new country, Sibti dreams of opening a small medicinal shop and earning a living. They acknowledged that this seems improbable given their present position.

“I do not know even how to navigate the place for day-to-day survival,” Sibti told me.

Tanveer Mir, 27, wonders if it would have been better to remain in Afghanistan with their family.

“We are not just abused and taunted in these camps, but attacked as well. People from social services do come for help,” they said, yet “there is no support system here to help us stand on our feet or help us to live in this foreign land.”

Canadian charitable organization Rainbow Railroad, which helps LGBTQ people escape violence and persecution in their home countries, is attempting to help queer Afghans relocate in Europe, Canada and the U.S., among other countries. Communications director Dane Bland said they are asking host governments to allow NGOs like theirs to refer vulnerable LGBTQ refugees to emergency services.

Looking to the future, Ahmed, Sibti and Tanveer all named a desire for things almost all people crave, like kinship and a way of supporting themselves.

Describing a wish to become part of a local community, Mir told me, “I love dancing and singing and want to explore this field, but some of the groups I came to know through the internet are in the city and it’s not possible to take part.” They peered out of the window of their room, which, like Ahmed’s, is as small as a prison cell, with white walls.

“If any host can accommodate me in their home, I can start thinking of moving on, but the chances seem bleak,” they said.

Still, Sibti has not given up their dream of one day opening a shop. “If local people support us, ignore our gender identity and the place we come from, probably living here will become a bit easy,” they said.

All the names in this story have been changed at the request of those interviewed.

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