Gay Life in Iran – by Ramtin

I had been kind of interested in men since my childhood. I grew up with this question and confusion and remained silent. There were no resources to refer to or to find the answer to who I was; even school advisors weren’t the right people to go to. As for speaking about these kind of things to your parents, never!

Their answer would be so obvious; it would either be a smack in the cheek or a religious speech. Neither of these would change the fact that I like men. They would start telling me that it is wrong according to religion and culture, and that you must grow up one day and get married to a girl, produce children, and do all sorts of other things. Basically to be a carbon copy of them.

According to the religion, by being gay you are committing an unforgivable sin. Even to have a thought of it is a sin. As for practicing it, if you ever have sex with another man you have committed a sin and must repent. If not, you must be executed. Repent and perform God’s will, or be executed for who you are.

According to Islam, by executing a gay man you are purifying him. By doing it, they are in fact doing a favour for you. Here is how you receive this favour: either by getting cut in half with a sword, getting thrown from a great height, getting burned alive, or getting stoned to death. Presented in terms of human rights and kindness, and then reduced to hanging with a rope around your neck until your heart stops beating.

Society does not accept homosexuality, and there is no word in Farsi for gay. The only word you can find is a swear word; if you ever mention it to someone you get punched. If you have a secret gay life and never demand your rights, you will be ok, but how long can you live like that and what sort of life is it?

As soon as you start living openly your trouble starts. First you get rejected by your family and society and then you lose your job and then more serious problems begin to start. A gay man has no rights in Iran. Gay people get harassed, mugged, raped or killed by ordinary people.

However, the main trouble comes from the authorities. As I have mentioned earlier, the death penalty is the future for a gay man who considers himself a human being and starts demanding his rights. By law, you need four men as witnesses to prove someone is gay. Either that or the accused has to confess four times. Yet science assists the Iranian authorities to prove the crime. They simply examine the accused and that is the end of the story. Depending on the judge, the punishment can be lashing or execution.

I always thought that I was born in a wrong place; Iran was not my home and I had to seek for myself a real home, a place of peace and tranquillity, a land which you can be yourself in, a land which belongs to god and no body claims ownership of it, a land which is ruled by humanity and nobody judges you because how you look or how you speak.

In a certain time for some circumstances I had to leave, the moment arrived and was the time to pack my stuff and leave everything behind.

Now I am in the UK seeking asylum for more than four years. I have been facing all sorts of problems: not because I am gay, because I am Iranian.

I have committed another sin and that’s being Iranian.

Being gay or being Iranian is god’s will. This causes problem in Iran and this causes problem in the UK.