Back in the day, there were many movies where the actresses kissed each other on the lips and the male leads dressed like women. It was culturally accepted and looked upon as part of the movie. However, in 2006 when Omaret Yacoubian was produced and presented to the masses, the homosexual relationship between two of its characters faced a lot of heat.
In black and white movies, it was okay for Ismail Yassin to dress as a woman and flirt with another guy. He was still portrayed like a normal human being with no psychological/mental illnesses. On the other hand, nowadays to present a homosexual relationship on TV, the character most of the time gets portrayed as someone with a bad history that caused him to have a different sexual orientation than what’s socially expected according to his gender.
The LGBT community has been growing lately in the Egyptian society, so have the attacks.
Farida Abo Aouf got locked out of her own Facebook account by the Facebook Management Team claiming that it contained “sexual material”. Her friends started a campaign with hashtags #Bring_back_Farida and #Facebook_is_transphobic. Now, Farida’s Facebook account is back and running after the campaign succeeded.
Farida also congratulated the first transgender who was finally exempted from her military duty.
Carla Masoud, an Egyptian transgender who was able to get married to her husband in Germany lately, announced that she now has the courage to be herself and live the life that she was never ashamed of.
Dalia Alfaghal announced on Facebook that her dad congratulated her on her relationship with her girlfriend, to only be faced by millions of swear words attacking her and her dad. Even though she replied to all the attacks with one post, she was even more attacked.
Are Egyptians more accepting towards transgenders than they are towards homosexuality and other sexual orientations? Will Egypt ever be a safe-zone?
