In an article published February 11, 2010, English-language UAE-based newspaper Gulf News contributed to the homophobia frenzy of the recent years with a piece called “Too close for comfort: Homosexuality in schools.” Growing concerns over what officials are calling an epidemic of “boyat” (butch lesbians) led the authorities to launch a state-sponsored correctional campaign entitled “Excuse Me; I’m a Girl” in 2009 [...]

And… we’re back! We received so much acclaim for the January 11 issue that we decided to leave it on for a couple of weeks. Well, ok, that’s only partly true. Some of our team members are also to blame. We’re back now & are continuing our historic streak with new articles. Enjoy!

Remember this one? You probably don’t, but this was the poster of one of the very first public LGBT [...]

This week and next, we’ll be looking back at a decade of LGBT activism in Lebanon, counting down our favorite moments and analyzing our greatest accomplishments. As we turn a new page of a new year, we must also acknowledge all the work it took to get us here. We start with the Top 10 Lebanese LGBT publications that came out over the past 10 years. I cannot but stand in awe of the amazing feat accomplished collectively by individuals and organizations working for LGBT justice in Lebanon. Here they are in chronological order:

Hello! You’ve probably noticed that I’ve changed my sex on Facebook. Were you surprised? Annoyed? Intrigued? Disgusted? Outraged? Did you think it was a joke? Did you perhaps think it was a mistake?

Actually, I’m glad you asked. I’ve changed my sex on Facebook as part of the Operation: Sex Change campaign to raise awareness around challenges facing transgender people everywhere in the world. My message is simple. I want you to know what “transgender” means. It is a term used to identify the many people [read more...]

This week, an article came out in L’Orient le Jour, Lebanon’s French daily newspaper, entitled “Les Pink Dollars, ou les tendances de la consommation gay“(tr. The Pink Dollars, or the gay consumption trends).  As one can guess from the title, the article described the booming purchasing power of Lebanon’s LGBT community.
And by LGBT, it meant [...]

October 24 marked the International Day of Climate Action on which people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history. They collectively organized 5200 events, calling for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis. Leading up to the one-day global campaign was a huge internet-based momentum-building effort by activists all over the world. What a magnificent campaign 350.org put together. And they did it by harnessing the power of online technology and pioneering a new and creative strategy of global organizing [...]

Summer in Lebanon means two things: an already overcrowded population gets even more crowded with tourists (and all the hype that comes with the money-making tourism season) and weddings (the money-spending season). Every year the weddings get more extravagant and more expensive. Every few weeks, someone in our family was getting married and I had [...]

An Arab Feminism(s) Conference was held this past week at the American University in Beirut, bringing together academics, researchers, writers, activists, and professors working on feminism and women’s rights. We got very excited about the conference and knew that it would be a challenge to bring up lesbian issues amidst what we predicted would be a conservative audience. So we banked on our allies [...]

Hello again friends. Missed us last week? We weren’t able to publish on time. But we’re making up for it with a packed issue that actually has more Arabic than English pieces – which is a first for us. The reason is that we have a top-notch new Arabic editor, aphrodite, who is working hard to assign, edit, and write articles in Arabic. She puts me to shame with her on-the-spot working skills versus my procrastinating expertise. As soon as news of Bekhsoos’s re-launch came out a couple of weeks ago, tweeters and bloggers from different Arab cities reported that the website, along with many gay-themed websites, was blocked.

This is the new Bekhsoos. We’re back after almost a whole year of no publishing. So what’s different? For one thing, we’ve decided to publish weekly. Yes, that’s a huge commitment, which is why we’ve added the little “beta” yellow icon next to our logo. We’re testing this new idea. We’re putting ourselves to the challenge of publishing at least 5-6 articles weekly because we want to be on top of information technology today. The idea of Bekhsoos.com started out (exactly 2 years ago) as a replacement for a “real” print magazine. Today, and with the way information sharing has evolved, it is clear to me that Bekhsoos actually belongs online. That’s where young LGBTs in Lebanon are looking…