Where Love Is Illegal

“As a human being I’ve always failed in finding the ‘one person’ that I can call soul mates because of the cultural restriction and the backwards traditions that doesn’t tolerate love in a different way but it’s ok I feel the love among family friends and country love, but as a non binary gender queer person I’ve never been able to express my gender identity the way I want because I may be called ‘faggot’ ‘sissy’ ‘pervert’ and a lot of other terms.”

“16 was the year of my coming out. I came out to my mother and my older brother. Poor him… he suffered from the pressure of the people of the neighborhood… My mother only worried about not having the cops home. Then, I understood that I will carry this responsibility throughout my entire life. Being responsible for being gay and different at 16 is worse than doing your military service.”

“Everyone should have the right to experiment femininity and masculinity and every possible way of gender expression despite of the biological sex they were assigned to at birth. Gender is a social construct, individuals should have the right to build and express their gender identity the way they want.”

“I fled my parent’s house and I turned my phone off for two weeks, I dropped school.
Afterwards when I re-opened my phone, the first call that I got was from my mother, she had a very sad voice while repeating : your father blind because of you.”

“The worst moment of my life was in December 2012, the first president of the association received death threats and I was hiding him in my home to protect him. So I became the target of a group of homophobic gangsters.”

“My childhood was awful and i suffered a lot. I made my coming out at the age of 16, and i think now that it was the biggest mistake of my life. This period I tried to commit suicide because of judgments.”

“It was last valentines when we decided to go have a romantic dinner at this nice restaurant where everything was decorated in red with heart shaped lights. The moment we got in, we set our eyes on this nice table for two with lovely candles on top of it, but the waiter directed us to a regular table for four because the other tables were for couples and we weren’t a couple. How can we be when she is a she and I am a she.”

“One night, my over thinking went too much, and I just decided to end it. I took lots of pills, hoping whatever this was, will end. I didn’t want to be rejected again, or judged one more time. But I didn’t die, I didn’t take enough pills, and I’m thankful for that. After a few years of being unable to trust people again or to talk about who I am. The universe threw some people who did accept me, they didn’t even care if I liked girls they cared about me. And better yet, I met people who are just like me, who suffered who tried to end it, who survived.”

“I’m still young and I’ve seen a lot through my highschool years. I came out when I was a freshman. And I got a lot of discriminations. It’s true that life has been tough for me, but I got thick skin now, I learned that people will always talk, more importantly they will always be afraid of difference.”

“It didn’t cause me any issues until I turned 13, my friends started talking about girls and how they want to ‘enjoy’ or ‘have fun’ with them. Everyone gets a … everytime they bring that subject up, and I didn’t, I wasn’t even paying attention to it, it made me feel like an outsider, I felt something was off and my thoughts were confirmed when I met Adam, we instantly clicked and we used to always hang out and play, and one night we got intimate and he kissed me, it was beautiful and scary at the same time. My thoughts were true, I AM DIFFERENT.”

“My family beat me, so I tried to commit suicide several times. One day I fell in love with a boy who lived in Libya, so I joined him there.
I was caught by the libyen police, they wanted to kill me. They beat me and detained me for 7 days.
I had to move back to Tunis and stay away from my love…a piece of me.
He got married, even though he is gay, and it depressed me…”

“Growing up in Tunisia is not as bad as it is, but it’s tiring. We’re not like other Arabic countries, but we are also not like Europeans, so we grow up having an identity disorder. I discovered I was bi at the age of 15.”