If it's foolhardy to call a decade the most significant in a region's history, it's even more of a foolhardy statement to make regarding the Arab region. And yet, it's because we felt this statement made sense when it comes to LGBTQ activism that this dossier was created. To compare the state of LGBTQ activism in 2009 and 2020 would be to compare two separate worlds. Between these two dates, a decade of upheavals, revolts, noise, street activism, and struggles. A decade in which societies had the opportunity, however fleetingly, to look themselves in the eye, to face their divisions of class, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and life aspiration, but also to work together and explore where they could form alliances.

One of the faces of the revolt was the emergence of a visible, plural queer movement, demanding recognition of its rights to fully exist in peace as part of society. This took place within families, in the streets, on social networks, and in the courts of law. This saw the emergence of associations, demonstrations, alliances, publications of books and novels, and blogs, but also the birth of communities, online or in real life, and the coalescence around real mass phenomena like the Mashrou' Leila music band.

And the response to these revolts was not long in coming. States, shaken politically, weakened in their role as providers of social protection, which served as the foundation of the authoritarian contract that binds them to their peoples, fell back on moral protection. Many conservative social classes have supported and provided their own volunteers for repression, imprisonment, torture, sequestration, and physical aggression. The other temple that states set out to guard was that of “national authenticity”, threatened by homosexuality seen as a Western import. The regimes used an old weapon, already brandished in the face of women during and after colonization: any desire to free oneself from bondage is contrary to what they see as “authentic Arab culture”. In this latest offensive, the regimes have found unexpected allies in a section of the Arab academic community based in the West, which under the guise of anti-imperialism, is eager to seek out the Westernized traitor wherever they may be from the heights of their American or European ivory towers.

But there's little they can do. The LGBTQ movement is here to stay. Even tragedies such as Sarah Hegazy's suicide in 2020 have, as Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi writes, given shape to a genuine transnational community of mourning and solidarity, in Arab countries and diasporas alike.

The Arab Reform Initiative's dossier on the LGBTQ+ question in the Arab region is a series of first readings of aspects of these movements and the forms of resistance and repression they encounter. Each article analyzes an aspect of these developments and problematizes future issues for the movement, such as the question of alliance with feminist groups, or how to fight back against moral panics (also imported from the West) that attempt to create a conservative bloc within society and thus isolate queer people. This dossier is also an opportunity to highlight the writings of new voices of young researchers and writers from the region.

In Immoral Voices, Immoral Bodies: How Visible Can Egyptian Queer Bodies Get?, M.K, a researcher who preferred to remain anonymous, analyzes the differences in context and reaction between two landmark events for the Egyptian LGBTQ community, the Queen Boat incident in 2004 and the crackdown following the appearance of a rainbow flag during a Mashrou' Leila concert in 2014. The different treatment of the two events shows what visibility has cost the movement, but also, how the rise of homonationalism in the West (where tolerance towards queer people would be a sign that the West is a superior civilization) has translated into the rise of state heteronationalism in the Arab world, where the defense of the heterosexual family has become a national security issue.

In Heteronationalism, Religion, and Family Values: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Lebanese Politicians' Statements Following Attempts to Abolish Article 534, Dana el Sammak analyzes official and religious discourses hostile to LGBTQ communities in Lebanon, and proposes a typology of the different registers mobilized to isolate LGBTQ people from their society.

In Why Can't Queer Activists Raise their Flag in Lebanon? Kristin Azar links the rise in official homophobic discourse to the weakening of the sectarian system as a result of the 2019 revolution and the Lebanese economic crisis. Unable to perform their redistributive functions, the representatives of the various sects had to fall back on a paternalistic discourse that presented their group to be under threat from the rise of LGBTQ demands in Lebanon.

In Emergence, Resilience, and Tensions: A Decade of LGBTQ Activism in Morocco, Sanae A. highlights the friction between the Moroccan LGBTQ movement and an older, more institutional feminist movement, showing that even today, the queer movement is struggling to build lasting alliances with the feminist movement.

In Rainbow Items and the Morality of Colors in Arab Countries, A.Z, a researcher who preferred to remain anonymous, uses the recent mobilization of authorities in various Arab countries against any symbol displaying rainbow colors, based on the cases of Algeria and Qatar, to demonstrate the imported Western character of the moral panics that regimes are experiencing, even as they try to distinguish themselves from them.

At a time of despair and collective powerlessness throughout the region, thinking about the future is increasingly looking like a luxury. The LGBTQ+ movement is no exception to this generalized apathy, in a context where multiple defeats, starting with impotence in the face of genocide, are suffocating the atmosphere. Today, more than ever, we need to measure how far we've come since the first wave of Arab revolutions and assess how far we still have to go. This initial assessment will enable us, based on lessons learned, to put in place new strategies and alliances, for the emancipation of all, as citizens just as much as people whose desires and gendered identities are as valid as those of others.