Help Tara Flee Transphobia in Lebanon
Tara is our beautiful Trans sister majoring in Special Education and Psychology, who dreams of moving from Lebanon to New York for her studies; she wishes to earn a degree to help create a more equitable system of education and better world for children to grow up in.
Due to persecution and reality of living as a Trans person in Beirut, Lebanon, she navigates limited electricity, surveillance, harsh discrimination and lack of access to jobs and basic needs in Lebanon.
I am Iman Le Caire, founder of TRANS ASYLIAS, a NYC based organization that aids Transgender Nonconforming Asylum Seekers in finding a safe and friendly country where they can relocate and get connected to resources and live life as their true selves.
I am also the Arabic Relations Manager and board member at TransEmigrate, European based organization which has a similar mission as TRANS ASYLIAS’ and works with my newly created organization on many cases.
Please help my daughter Tara live the life she deserves and raise money to ensure that she gets to the States safely. We are grateful for your donations and sharing
our link.
Please read Tara’s story below for more information ! Thank you for sharing the Love + helping us bring Tara to safety ❤️.
Hello,
My name is Tara. I'm a 21 years old (soon 22) pre-operation Trans woman born and living in Lebanon, Beirut.
I have been questioning my sexuality and identity since my tween years. My school years were common academically but socially, I only went through bullying that turned an energetic and motivated child into a shy and anxious young person lacking self-confidence and self-esteem.
My family, mainly my father, was abusive in a physical and a verbal/emotional way. I feared my father as a master and still do even when I try to stand up to him.
My peers at school upgraded the bullying to sexual harassment without the awareness of that young and naïve teenager I used to be, to the point of having to change schools after a huge incident regarding it (I would rather keep it unknown for personal reasons).
I began having severe mental health problems that had me take 7-8 pills daily along with sessions with a therapist.
Changing schools didn’t fix a lot for the bullying remained and so did the loneliness out of exclusion.
Years of therapy and healing later, I was confident enough to identify myself (in discretion of course) and stand up for myself as much as I can.
I should note that I had no friend to support me to this day. My childhood friend was abusing my kindness for benefits such as school work.
Currently my parents are planning to move to a strict muslim country which has no sympathy or compassion for Queer and Trans people.
I believe what kept me going through those obstacles, which would usually pause an individual’s life for a few years, is my education.
Getting through education and qualifications is one of my biggest priorities in life. Knowledge is power as I like to believe, and never disappoints. It is one of
the few things that didn’t let me down in life so I have a lot of trust in it to improve myself as a person, a woman to be specific, and my lifestyle to complete independence and a sense of security.
I cannot describe peacefulness for a Trans person’s life always will be a battle, yet I wish to go through it for it makes me happy to be myself for once. I wore a mask for far too long.
With your help, no matter how small, and the full support of TRANS ASYLIAS and TransEmigrate, I’d be able to gain a new life that I control, an education
to take pride in and base myself upon, and a career that would help me go through life as I imagined myself to be as a child.
Regarding the situation in my country, Lebanon, the educational, political, social, and security parts of it have all been deteriorating, faster than ever before
after the October 17 revolution, the Beirut Port explosion, the growing economic crisis, and the unstable condition of the government.
The Lebanese population can’t protest for their basic human rights without being harmed in the streets by the authorities from the government’s orders like terrorists (I will spare the atrocious details). This oppression and injustice is close to a dictatorship installed by a mafia group who took over to keep hatred and chaos rising.
You can imagine how life, in that case, must be for the lgbt community living in the shadows, let alone Trans people.
You may have heard of the article 534 that deems “unnatural acts” illegal. Despite the protests on it and the “modifications” made, it remains neglected. There is no
respect for that law whatsoever whether for homosexuals or any other sexuality.
Another law, article 521, is problematic as well especially for Trans women such as myself. It criminalizes gender expression by making it an offense for a man to
“disguise himself as a woman”. The penalty for this offense is up to six years imprisonment.
This information is found through this webpage:
https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/lebanon/
The authorities can easily abuse this by arresting lgbt people in methods that are considered illegal and abusive such as invasion of privacy (tracking people’s phone data to see which dating sites they frequent for example), emotional abuse (blackmail - threatening to tell family members, friends, and people in that community about the victim who is living in discretion), or even physical by hitting or using non-sterilized HIV tests that would make someone with no STD have positive results and thus end up imprisoned a year in prison.
Such issues occur often in the streets and are rarely testified by the lgbt community victims out of fear.
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/LBN/INT_CCPR_ICO_LBN_27152_E.pdf
This report by Helem, a lgbt organization and advocate for lgbt rights in the country shows such points that barely represent 25% of the total cases.
While Lebanon is closer to the West than the rest of the Arab World, it remains unable to support its standards of human rights and equality.
No matter the improvement heard of about the lgbt life quality in terms of legality in Lebanon starting 2017, there is still no real protection we (lgbt) can get from the law or even our society.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/04/lebanon-security-forces-try-close-lgbt-conference
This article describes the attempt of the Lebanese Security officers to shut down an lgbt conference, NEDWA, organized by the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE) on September 29, 2019.
General Security officers took the details of all conference participants, including those from highly repressive countries such as Egypt and Iraq.
The reasons of such actions were claimed to follow public statements from the Muslim Scholars Association accusing NEDWA organizers of promoting
homosexuality and drug abuse.
They always targeted NGOs like AFE who organize such events in the country annually.
This isn’t the first time that the Lebanese Government has put a stop to human rights events around gender and sexuality in the claim of “preserving public
morality.”
My case is only one example. And despite the obstacles I went through, I remain lucky for there are individuals that went and still are going through worse.
Your help would be an opportunity for me to come to life in the US in a respectable college with individuals who won’t make me feel insecure or blackmail me for my identity and life choices.
I personally wish to thank every single donator in advance for every dollar provided means a wider gap to see the light at the end of this dark tunnel.
Bless you all.
Organizer and beneficiary
