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Multimedia Project Tackles LGBT Rights in Palestine


“We want to start an honest conversation that can also raise…limitations and tough questions,” explained Haneen Maikey, director of the Jerusalem-based Al Qaws Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian society. “It’s not to be accepted, but rather to bring the society to a safe place that we can discuss these issues.”

Al Qaws is behind a new project called Singing Sexuality, or “ghanni a’an taa’rif” in Arabic, launching May 25 in Haifa after nearly two years of preparation and the work of about 80 volunteers.

Combining photographs, videos, music and written testimonials and information, the project aims to educate young Palestinians about gender diversity, sexuality, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. The goal is to initiate conversations between friends, family members and society in general throughout all of historic Palestine.

"We just want to make a dialogue. We just want to say that this issue is here."
-- Alaa, an Al Qaws volunteer from Haifa









She explained that the evolution of the LGBT and queer struggles in Palestine is similar to what has happened in other countries, insomuch as these movements are more visible in modern Palestinian cities, like Ramallah or Haifa, than in smaller towns or villages, where society is generally more conservative.


Al Qaws’ Haneen Maikey also sees the Singing Sexuality project as part of the larger Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation, colonialism and discrimination, both inside Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories.

“Part of how I see and understand resistance is that when we decolonise Palestine, I will have a society that I can rely on, a society that is ready to [respond to] different social and political processes, that can respect the Other, [and] have openness about different sexuality and behaviour,” she explained.


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