Ahmed A. is a Libyan doctor and a university professor who found his way through the media, he is a member of the LGBTI+ community. He says: “Society is a Blade on their nicks”

What do you know about the LGBTQ+ community in Libya ?

I noticed that the majority of the LGBTI+ community in Libya are creative, talented and artsy, however, their identity was obscured until they started to look down on themselves, whilst the Libyan society undermined their rules in the society and labeled them as the “sexual community”.

LGBTI+ people in Libya feel they are a minority that does not need to defend itself or prove its point of view, but a minority that feels guilty. The LGBTI+ people I know in Libya who are “physically intact” are either forced into marriage or sexually blackmailed.

Have you ever met any person within the LGBTQ+ community in Libya ? If so, how did that make you feel?

I have a lot of LGBTI+ friends, including my best friend whom I accompanied for a lifetime, when we were studying together, I came out as gay. He was scared and he threatened me through a mutual friend that “if I continued to insist on being gay, he would stop talking to me”.. but what surprised me was that later, after few years, he came out to me as a part of the LGBTI+ community and told me he’s depressed because of his previous relationship.

Let me tell you something strange. I have a friend who lives in Libya. He called me yesterday crying, because he will be forcibly married today. I met him Four years ago and he was living a normal life with his partner in a European country, and somehow he was convinced that “what we’re doing is wrong” and “we will be punished by God” I would reply: “why would we be punished for a normal thing in which also we haven’t chose, we were born gay.” and now he is forced to marriege in order to give the society what it wants. “Society is a Blade on their nicks”

Are you with the LGBTQ+ rights in Libya? If yes, how would you show your support?

Of course, I strongly do! But I hope that one day I will declare my support without fear for my personal safety or receiving death threats or being discriminated against by my workplace or just while walking the street.. I wait for the moment when I am safe with my partner, to openly support the Libyan LGBTI+ community.

Here’s an important point, I think that a large percentage of the Libyan LGBTI+ community tend to oppress themselves and don’t accept their different orientations and identities, and I tried to convince many of them to accept themselves and they met me with rejection, “If you want to sacrifice, help and affect people, they must be ready to accept it.”

Being gay in Libya means that the decision to express yourself, your personality, your preferences and your sexual orientation has dire consequences, you will be forced to leave your country, your family and your job. Many people don’t have the courage to leave their families, especially in light of the current situation in the country.

Between Medicine and the Media, what do you have to say to the Libyan community about the LGBTI+ people?

As a doctor, scientifically, according to the World Health Organization, homosexuality and transgendering are not psychological or organic diseases or hormonal imbalances, our sexual preferences are things we are born with from the beginning, and same-sex relationships have existed since ever.. centuries ago.

And as a media person, unfortunately, I noticed that no one from the media or the art community is able to take a bold step and declare that “LGBTI+ people must have their rights as a part of the Libyan society”, contenting to live in the shadows, hiding their orientations so that their lives are not affected.