Hello everyone and welcome to a new video.
Today, we will talk about the LGTB community
in Kurdistan. Before the production of this video, we asked our followers on Instagram if they supported
the LGTB-question.
LGBT is a acronym that stands for Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Transgender.
The group of people that belongs to that group has always
existed but the acceptance of it is very
new and still today, the LGBT society is being
followed by those who simply won’t
accept them for who they are.
In the Kurdish society, the LGBT society is
having a hard time and today we will, with
limited information go through how they are
and how the future looks for the LGBT
society within Kurdistan.
Before starting to look into this question,
we need to understand how the Kurdish society works.
Gladly, we can see that the Kurdish society
slowly slowly walks the right
way in the view of women rights, equality
and LGBT rights.
However, the problem of
acceptance is still huge, and this is why.
Kurdistan, but also the rest of the Middle
East generally has been part of different
kingdoms, empires, dynasties and states.
All of this has had different ideologies,
some
of them very open-minded and other very strict.
Most of these rulings has been
religiously dominated and weather it has been
under Christian-rule such as the kingdom of Armenia or Islamic-rule
such as the Ayyubid-dynasti, the status of gay people has been
highly discriminated and not accepted.
Before nationalism came in the 20 th century, Religion was much more dominating everybodies lifes. It was
much more dominating in the world and both the Kurdish culture and the rest of the Middle East has been affected
by both Christianity and Islam's opinion towards gay people.
Let’s take a look at these opinions starting
with Christianity and we’re gonna look at
the Leviticus, the third book of the old testament, chapter 18, verse 22.
The same things goes for chapter 20, verse
13:
Islam tells in Surah 7 verse 80 to 84 the
story of the “people of Lot” which was
destroyed by the wrath of God because the
men engaged in lustful acts between
themselves.
There is no doubt that both Christianity and Islam is against HBTQ.
As I mentioned before, the world has been very dominated by religion.
So now we have an area which for thousands of years been dominated by the thinking of religion, but luckily, we see a slow evolving
revolution in Kurdistan today, where
equality between men and women are getting
better and better in especially in Rojava,
Syrian-occupied Kurdistan and Bashur, Iraqi-occupied
Kurdistan.
Meanwhile the slowly change of LGBT acceptance
in Kurdistan mostly takes place in
Rojava, Syrian occupied Kurdistan and in Bakur,
Turkish occupied Kurdistan.
When we look at the population of Bakur, Turkish
occupied Kurdistan, several sources
tells us that this part of Kurdistan is the
most religious and conservative part.
Still, we
see LGBT friendly forces in HDP, a Kurdish
party in Turkey which claims to be on
oppressed peoples side in Turkey, that being
Kurds, Christians, LGBT and so on…
This is what we can read from HDPs official
website.
Also we’ve seen several flags of LGBT on official demonstrations of the HDP.
At the
moment HDP is the side of Bakur leading the
rights of the LGBT community against
the conservative and in some cases homophobic
sides of the Turkish government and
other parts of Turkey and Bakur.
Let’s listen to the story of Yusuf Celik,
kurd from Kahta in Bakur who now lives in Canda.
Going over to Rojava, we see another way of how the slow change is being implemented.
 
The Kurdish forces of YPG and YPJ has since
the Syrian civil war taken
control over Rojava, Syrian occupied Kurdistan
and created a new society, with new
laws, new standards and slowly, the agenda
to implement equality for both women and
the LGBT community.
In the war between ISIS and the YPG and more specifically in the liberation of Raqqa, a militiant group
the queer insurection and liberation army was formed.
It was the first LGTB group who fought against the Islamic State.
The group is part of the international freedom battalion.
When the YPG forces of Rojava liberated the
Islamic State capital city of Raqqa, they
actually lifted the LGBT flag in the city
centrum, marking a victory against the forces
during this time, several similar photos was released to show the support towards LGBT.
Looking at Bashur, Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan,
the LGBT community is getting less
support from the government of KRG than for
example the Rojava administration.
In 2010, an effort was attempted by the Kurdish
government to promote gender equality
in Kurdistan, however, this attempt was attacked
heavily by several parts, not at least
Kamil Haji Ali, the minister of Endowments
and Religious affairs, as well as the
Kurdistan Islamic movement, for trying to
legalize same-sex marriage.
The KRG government defended themselves by
claiming that the legislation didn’t deal
with LGBT rights justices, only by social
justice issues impacting women.
Lets look more close at the life of LGBT community in Bashur.
