Tag Archives: Iran

What is Life Like For Lesbians In Iran?

In Iran, it’s socially acceptable for women to pursue higher education and hold their own jobs – but expressing queer desire is not just taboo, it’s illegal.

While extramarital sex between a man and a woman is punishable by house arrest and stoning, women who engage in lesbian sex receive 100 lashes or the death penalty. Many homosexuals are counselled into sexual reassignment surgery because being transgender, unlike being a homosexual, isn’t against their interpretation of Shia Islam.

As a result, more and more Iranians live in exile in Turkey, Europe and North America. The Iranian lesbian community is growing quickly.

For example, the organization LesMigraS e.V. prints brochures and leaflets about homosexuality in Farsi, in order to educate not just open-minding and educated Iranians in exile, but also their more conservative families. This information is available online to Iranians who can bypass censorship.

Gorups such as LesMigraS e.V., while changing the minds of Iranians, also hope to draw attention to their cause internationally. They have been working tirelessly since the 1980s to do so.

Queer Iranian artists are also using their work as activism.

The Iranian pop musician Googoosh made headlines in 2014 with the song Behesht (Paradise). This song tells of a young woman who receives a marriage proposal.

However, her family and community reject her suitor, who is not visible until the end of the video – the suitor is a woman. At the end of the video, a message appears: “Freedom to Love for All.”

The music video’s director, Navid Akhavan , told the Iran Journal,

Many members of the LGBT community in Iran wrote to tell us that the release of the video led to some positive changes in their lives. I realized what kind of power art gives you.”

Despite the vitriolic criticism he received, Akhavan insists that he will not back down from this cause. “We have to show that we are on the side of the people in the LGBT community and accept them as part of our society just like anyone else.”

Learn more at Qantara, and check out the Iranian lesbian film Imagine Me and You.

Director Mania Akbari Was Exiled From Iran For Making Lesbian Films

Mania Akbari is a provocative filmmaker who was exiled from her home country of Iran for creating lesbian films.

She began her career by acting and creating films in Iran. Despite the fact that her work could be seen as political and has been deemed a threat to the Republic of Iran, she does not consider herself an activist.

She told ICA London,

I believe politics needs its own language that is beyond my capability. I was not a political activist and I am not.”

That does not stop her work from resonating with countless women. She sees herself as “a product of feminine history of [Iran] with all its beauties, contrasts and limitations.”

Akbari muses that her work and experiences are not hers alone, but also belong to thousands of women in history.

Despite being exiled with no possibility of legal return in sight, Akbari feels as if she still lives in Iran. She says,

Your country makes you who you are. I am a product of the awareness of the past generations of my country. I never left Iran. Iran is with me in my memories and it is impossible to leave your memories. And I believe a real artist is born somewhere and influenced by that place and space, but her or his existence is stateless and without nationality.”

Her avant-garde films tackle sexual identity and orientation, feminism, marriage, reproductive rights, non-monogamy and infidelity, and lesbian experiences.

As a groundbreaking filmmaker and writer, she has won countless international awards such as the Independence Honorary Award (Germany), Best Film at the Venice Film Festival (Italy), Best Film and Actress at the Barcelona Film Festival (Spain), and Best Director and Best Film at the Kerala Film Festival (India).

Her current project is as an actress in the film Ten. She plays a “chic divorcée” who has ten conversations with the passengers in her car. The passengers include “a young son, a jilted bride, a prostitute and a devout old woman.”

Learn more about the project here. Or visit Mania Akbari’s official website.