A 10 minutes read…
The new exhibition in Atlas, available until December 13th and organized by historian Alex Bakker in collaboration with IHLIA, Compass, and Studium Generale, shines a spotlight on the history of transgender people in the Netherlands. I went to the exhibition’s opening, and, as beautiful as it was to see the deep and rich history of Dutch transgender people, it was rather heartbreaking to realize that so much of this history is marked by decades of struggle, trauma and tragedy, and that the fight is far from over. In fact, the LGBTQ+ community throughout the past several centuries has been defined by the very same struggle for acceptance and human rights, the very same fight that trans people face today. And, of course, it stands to mention the fact that so much of this history has been lost or never recorded to begin with. As rich as the exhibition is with information on the Dutch trans community and the history of being transgender in the Netherlands, the exhibition only has information up to the 1950s. This is only about 70 years of history, despite trans people having existed since ancient times, as early as 4,500 years ago in Sumerian and Akkadian texts, and up to 9,000 years ago in ancient art around the Mediterranean. And this is, of course, no fault of the exhibition; much of the documented history before this time, and the work that trans activists had been doing then, was destroyed.
This lack of the conversation of trans joy was further exemplified by the lecture Dr. Mark Hommes recently gave on the role gender plays in our lives, and the kinds of gender identities beyond cis male/female, where an audience member asked a question that was something along the lines of whether there were any studies on gender euphoria, given there were so many about gender dysphoria, to which Dr. Hommes replied that he had not heard of any such studies. And, being at the exhibition today after the lecture, it really hit me just how much of the transgender experience has been defined by this tragedy of dysphoric feelings, depression, anxiety, and all sorts of negative feelings, that we never get to see much of the kinds of euphoric, positive feelings that trans people have when they are finally able to look like & present in the way they choose, and are seen as the gender they are by their friends, (chosen) family, and society at large. The conversation has centered around despair, but I would really like to see it start to pivot more towards joy in the years and decades to come.
A bit about me: I am gay & non-binary/genderfluid, and I come from the Middle East. Specifically, I am Syrian and was born and raised in the United Arab Emirates up until I moved here in 2020. I had come to terms with my sexual identity a few years prior, and my gender identity a while after I moved. However, obviously there was no visible queer community I could get in touch with, in the UAE. I had intended to move out for quite some time (and I would have probably still moved regardless of my sexual or gender identity) but upon coming to terms with my sexual identity I realized I could never be myself there, at least not for many, many years. So, I set out to find a new place to study & move to, and luckily, I managed to get offers for a few universities in the Netherlands. The very first thing I did upon confirming my enrollment at TU/e was look for student associations, namely if there were any LGBTQ+ associations, and lo and behold, Compass was there. I excitedly rushed to email the association to figure out how I could join the association and got a reply with all the relevant links (WhatsApp, Discord, etc.) which I immediately joined. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the future was looking very bright. I felt such a sense of joy and relief when I landed here on my own that it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, like when someone says that a massive weight had been lifted off their chest, it very much felt like that. I got more and more involved with Compass, and although I am taking this year off to focus on my studies, I’ll be back on the board/committees next year.
The reason for this (not so brief after all) introduction is that I wanted to clear up one of the biggest misconceptions the West has on LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East and provide a historical link to the advancement LGBTQ+ rights in the rest of the world. Many people I’ve met seem to think we are extremely far away from even the most basic rights, and that the situation there is completely hopeless, that we will never see any change in our lifetimes. This was a view I used to have, until I realized that this is far from the case, in reality. The work that LGBTQ+ activists, organizations and allies in the region have been doing in recent times has led to some successes, and the availability and accessibility of information has led to the conversation being started, in attempting to educate straight, cis people on the LGBTQ+ community. Progress is, unfortunately, painstakingly slow. But it is not hopeless.
I’m sure you can notice some parallels, but to make them clearer: this is virtually the same situation LGBTQ+ people were in just a few decades ago in the West. Keep in mind, many of these anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the Middle East were inherited from the British and French colonial systems that governed us before independence. Back then in the West, many aspects of LGBTQ+ life and being out was just as stigmatized and in some cases, illegal. Remember back to when Alan Turing, one of the fathers of modern computer science and whose work cracked the Enigma cipher used by the Nazis for communication, which ended up shortening the war by approximately 2 years, was prosecuted by the British government later for “homosexual acts” and was forced to take hormones that would chemically castrate him as an alternative to prison, which ultimately led to his suicide 2 years later. Homosexuality was only decriminalized in the entirety of the United Kingdom 40 years ago, in 1982. Laws against discrimination of sexual and gender identity were not put into place until 12 years ago, in 2010. Same sex marriage was not legal until 2013, only 9 years ago. I think it’s easy for many people in the West to think that countries, especially those in the Global South, who have not progressed as quickly as those in the West on issues like women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, etc., are simply “hopeless”, since many countries in the West have progressed at around the same times. For example, while homosexuality in the Netherlands has been legal since 1811, same-sex marriage was not legal until 2001 (despite being the first country in the world to legalize it), and anti-discrimination laws were not put into place until 2019, only 3 years ago. The “X” sex option was not available until 2020, and even then, you need to petition the courts. Similarly, a M-F or F-M change with the municipality, which was not legal up until a few decades ago, where it was only possible with a court petition and a note from a psychologist required, in addition to sex reassignment surgery. This was only rescinded in 2014; now surgery is not needed to change your gender legally.
I bring up these dates to point out just how recent most of them are. Most of us reading this were kids or teenagers at the time some of the most basic and fundamental rights, such as same-sex marriage, were granted. This could not be made possible without the work of activists and organizations, who help to give the public a more educated view on LGBTQ+ identities that is free of stereotypes and misconceptions, provide safety and resources for those in need, and protest for these rights. Education also helps in changing and secularizing the otherwise traditional and conservative views of new potential lawmakers and leaders, who have the power to enact these historic changes into law. As a result, attitudes shift towards more positive views over time. That time is usually not trivial or short; in the United States for example, in a survey done in 1977, 43% of Americans surveyed believed lesbian and gay sex should not be legal at all. 43% believed it should be, and 14% had no opinion. In 2019, 83% of Americans surveyed believed it should be legal; almost double what it was 40 years ago. In 1996, a survey was conducted which showed that only 27% of Americans surveyed supported same sex marriage. In 2019, 63% supported it. Back to 1977, 56% of Americans surveyed said that lesbian and gay people should have equal employment opportunities. And in 2019, that number almost doubled to 93%.
So, to bring it back to myself, as an Arab person, I have hope for the future, and I do believe I will see meaningful, significant change in my own lifetime. I, as well as any other LGBTQ+ Arab person will eventually have the freedom to be out and proud in our home countries; the same freedoms that I enjoy here in the Netherlands. Yes, our situation is quite bad now, but the situation in most Western countries was also quite bad only 40 or 50 years ago (and it still is quite bad here, in some cases such as getting access to gender affirming care). With the work that our own incredible activists and organizations are doing, I am certain that attitudes will improve enough and create the conditions for a Middle East that is friendly and accepting towards LGBTQ+ people, just as much as the West is now. What I refuse to believe or subscribe to now, is the orientalist, colonialist and stereotyped viewpoint that change is simply not possible for us, that we are too “behind” or too “backwards” compared to the rest of the world, or that religion, which our laws are based upon (both Islam and Christianity) is too incompatible with LGBTQ+ life to make change possible. I also implore our readers who do believe that to examine why they think it is the case, while the West, for which this significant progress has only been very recently seen and for which Christianity has also been the basis of many of its laws, is not considered too “behind” or “backwards” for LGBTQ+ rights in the same sense that a lot of Westerners think of for the people in the Middle East.
To bring this back to the Netherlands, transgender people here still face many issues, which is further worsened by the media (including social media) espousing and platforming negative views of trans people; think the recent, otherwise small, but very vocal wave of trans-exclusionary radical feminists and “LGB” separatist movements, as well as the usual conservatives, right wingers, religious fundamentalists, and overall bigots who stand in the way of progress. But, as the exhibition and the talk showed, things are improving, albeit slowly, and the deep and rich history over the past 70 years of transgender people in the Netherlands proves that: despite the challenges faced today, those who have come before us have paved the way and laid the groundworks for a better life for the trans people of today, and we should aim to do the same for those who come after us. These changes are very unnoticeable as they happen over the years until they become major (legalization of same-sex marriage, rights to change gender, etc.), because of how we experience time in a continuous manner; it’s hard to notice change until you look back to a longer time period of years/decades and see that in fact, things did change quite drastically. In an even more relatable example, if you saw pictures of yourself as a kid, you would definitely agree that you are much different now, physically older, much more mature, etc., but it’s not something you really notice happening to you until you start looking back at those years. And so, my view is very similar here too. Things are quite bad now, but over time, it will become better; the public’s attitudes towards transgender people and transgender issues will become more progressive and will eventually lead to things such as doing away with the archaic systems of needing to be on a never-ending waitlist, obtaining a diagnosis from a therapist and needing to prove that you are “trans enough”, and being able to have informed consent, all ways to give autonomy to trans people and a departure from stigma. There are new challenges to be solved in the education of people in the way of progress, especially with the echo chambers social media creates in its use of content curation algorithms, but solutions can always be found to these problems.
One thing that is for certain throughout history is the ability of LGBTQ+ people as a whole, to persevere in the face of the stigma and challenges that more or less come part-and-parcel with being LGBTQ+. As a result, it can be very easy for us to fall into defining our lives and our identities with the trauma and tragedies we face as LGBTQ+ people, wherever it may come from. This is also especially true for the population of gay men, for which there is a lost generation of gay men who came before us, those who unfortunately lost their lives to the HIV/AIDS epidemic during the 80s and 90s. But things did eventually improve, and now there is more awareness of it, as well as prevention and treatment options that were otherwise not available back then. I do not think any of us take our situations for granted, given how much we are reminded of the pain of the past. However, I would love to see more LGBTQ+ people begin to embrace and show the joy that comes with our lives, because that is not talked about nearly as much as the pain. As I mentioned near the beginning, for example, there are almost no studies on gender euphoria, but many studies exist on gender dysphoria. Those LGBTQ+ people who came before us have struggled, but they did so in order for us to be able to feel this joy throughout the entirety of our lives, that they may have either never felt, or only felt near the end of their lives. And so, we should use that privilege to celebrate ourselves, while paving the way for future generations to feel an even greater sense of euphoria and joy. Not just on Pride Month, or Transgender Awareness Week, but whenever this deep, heavy reminder of the burden and the past come: allow yourself the chance to celebrate the joys of your identity and remind yourself of the times you experienced this joy in the past, as well as the fact that things are better now, and they will be even better in the future; one that you will see in your lifetime.